


Uncanny Likenesses

by Routcliffe



Series: Fortryllelse og Bakverk [4]
Category: Ylvis
Genre: Gen, Urban Fantasy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-22
Updated: 2018-04-14
Packaged: 2019-03-22 13:02:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 18
Words: 80,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13764759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Routcliffe/pseuds/Routcliffe
Summary: Someone is after the human talk show hosts of Norway.  Between their own burgeoning wizardry and some powerful connections in the magical world, Ylvis aren’t exactly easy targets, but there is someone close to them who’d give anything for a touch of magic in his life.By the time Bård and Vegard realize just how wrong things have gone, the Prime Minister is in mortal danger, Finn has vanished, Brynjar is grievously injured, and a fearsome beast stalks the old roads.  And Calle Hellevang-Larsen just isn’t himself these days...





	1. Sheep's Clothing

**Author's Note:**

>  
> 
> (Commissioned) cover art by the wonderful eldkrind on Tumblr! (Same awesomely talented artist; he just changed his URL.)
> 
> I promised that the next thing would be lighter and more fun. I wasn't aware that it would also be eight months overdue, but it was probably implicit in the author. And I guess it worked out, because eight months ago I had no idea what the lads were up to, and that was useful information.
> 
> ***
> 
> Update: A friend suggested that I say few words about this AU, for readers who haven't read the rest of the series. Briefly, magical creatures have always shared the world with humans. Bård and Vegard met a bunch of them while travelling for Norges Herligste in 2007; now they have contact lenses that let them see these people, and usually without meaning to, they've become embroiled in a lot of major magical events. When they knew magic existed, naturally they had to learn it, and they both started out with weak powers that have gotten stronger.
> 
> A friend made changelings of them, Finn Weber and Brynjar Kvam, for protection. They host their own talk show, a sort of Daily Show-type parody news show. Finn ended up proposing to the elf who made him, and they have a baby together. Brynjar has taken over one of Odin's old halls in Asgard. A couple of books ago, Vegard used his own blood to free the the changelings from the spells that enslaved them, but blood magic is illegal, and he ended up going to jail until he made a deal to have his magic ripped out. It turned out to be part of a bigger plot that Vegard and Bård foiled together, and Vegard got his magic back stronger than ever, but as of this story he's still processing.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A garden plot / The violence of the lambs / Summer fun in Oslo #1: Dressing up

“What about the fox boys, then?” 

It was the middle of June, and the lilacs were at their finest, the warm air heavy with the scent of their perfume. Blossoms swayed in the gentle breeze that blew through the bower, affording anyone who looked out flashes of the footpaths. Una liked to see humans about, snapping pictures and walking dogs and pushing their younglings around in prams. Every so often one would take a wrong turn at the lilacs and stumble in, the darlings, and gape open-mouthed at the beauty and majesty of Hagefestning. The dálki had warned her about it time and time again, and she had narrowed the entrance considerably and made it approachable from one side only, but really, what did they expect? That having bought peace so dearly, she would make her stronghold heavy with menace like a common warmonger? Her stored magics meant she had nothing to fear from any of them, and she loved the company. It wasn’t like she kept people for centuries anymore. She gave them a night or three of joy, addled their memories with a mead of her own brewing, and deposited them safely on the lawn outside. It was probably good for the poor things. 

Una was a very old elf. She had seen the Third Crossing and the Iron Wars. She was frail and birdlike, her blue eyes enormous. They crinkled around the edges, and her pale skin was thin, almost translucent, but her hair, the hair that had been the subject of ballads and odes, and had in one way or another caused the deaths of at least twelve men, three women, and one person who was neither, was still thick and lustrous, waves and waves of gold held back from her face by a circlet of delicate silver filigree. There was a single ruby at her throat, and on her finger was a ring with the smallest chip of brilliant white crystal, its radiance made bearable by the strongest wards an army could weave.

Her younger companion frowned. “What, that kitsune? I don’t think you’ll get very far.” His name was Erling, and his great-grandmother had been a svartalfr, the servant of Uriel Akarael. The kids at Dýranblað had teased him for his smaller stature and dark hair, but at NUA it had given him just the right amount of cool. Part of him had chafed at being recommended for this job, which as far as he could see had nothing to do with his Political Esoterics degree, but his family had told him that he should be honoured, and that was what won out. And he did love it, most of it. He loved _her_. She was a dear old soul.

“No, no, not him.” The old elf’s throne was heaped high with cushions, some of them rich velvet and brocade, some of them crumbling leather, some of them faux fur in jewel colours and simple, cheerful patterns. They cushioned her bony frame from the hard metal. “Not him. The humans. The brothers. You hear about them in our papers, every so often. And they had that song. Wapapapapapapow, and whatnot.” She waved one hand back and forth in illustration.

“Ylvis?” the other shrilled. “Milady...”

She turned for a moment, and pulled out her phone, and searched the Wild Hunt. “Just so. Everything I’ve seen about them says that they are remarkable. They have risen from nothing to become superstars and master wizards, and brought down favourites of the Bright Court.” She thumbed through pictures until she found one she liked: the two humans, one dark-haired and one light-haired, standing side by side, in profile, with their arms folded, in matching red shirts. They were looking off into the distance, the golden one looking noble and purposeful with a fist clenched over his heart, the dark one clear-eyed and dreamy. “If these boys don’t like something,” she said fondly, “they tear it down.”

“ _Precisely,_ ” the younger elf said. “They’re immensely powerful and diabolically intelligent. The older one liberated their changelings. At least one, and maybe another, although no one can figure out how.”

“Brave!” She looked speculative. “Changelings. Possibly useful.”

“He went to prison for black magic, and since then he’s obsessed with one thing and one thing only.”

“And that is?”

The younger elf’s gaze had been drawn upward by something, and he squinted for a moment at an airplane flying overhead. Then he returned his attention to the old woman before him. “Revenge. We want to stay away from Ylvis, my Lady. You can’t trust men like that. Cold. Calculating. Utterly bent on destruction.”

***

Vegard stood with the head of his sheep costume tucked under one arm and his thumb in his mouth, nibbling methodically. He’d been running his fingers through the head’s fleece when a hangnail had snagged, and it was going to drive him to distraction if he didn’t take care of it _now_.

“Everybody ready?” Bård shouted, and the sea of extras roared in the affirmative. 

Vegard took his hand from his mouth. “Remember, watch for traffic and pedestrians, stay with the group, and first and foremost, be safe!” He knew that everyone had been briefed already, but with a bunch of excited, exuberant people on a fine spring day, it never hurt to say it one more time. Then he returned his attention to his thumb, and managed to remove the hangnail, not quite cleanly, but in a way he thought he could live with until he could get to a set of nail clippers. 

“Okay, heads on!” Bård put on his dog head, and everyone else donned their sheep heads, and the crowd flowed out of the square and down Youngs Gate, led by Magnus in a shepherdess’ frock and bonnet. Calle, in a short-sleeved work shirt and short pants and suspenders and poor-boy hat, brought up the rear. Both carried crooks. Bård circled the crowd at a run, barking, and it was Vegard’s job to break away sometimes and be brought back into the fold, so that they could have a little rogue sheep action without endangering any of the extras. 

The Urban Shepherd bit was for Helland-Strøm, a dairy in Finnmark. Their sheep’s milk cheese had won gold at the International Food Contest in Denmark, and now they were trying to sell it around Scandinavia. They’d asked about sponsoring a segment on _Tonight with Ylvis_. They had no plans for a new season, and it really wouldn't fit in with the new project, so they’d had to say no to that. However, they offered a counterproposal, a short segment like _Who Wants This_ , which they’d done for Chess in 2013. They’d had the special this year in April, a concert at Gardermoen in May and another soon, and Pohoda coming up in July, but Vegard had missed the last month of _Tonight With Ylvis_ , and after a bleak and terrible winter he was very keen to throw himself back into his work. 

__They blocked traffic on Storgata. Magnus had planted himself between the tram tracks. With his crook raised and his skirt flapping around his ankles, he looked more like Gandalf than Bo Peep. Vegard, already sweating in his sheep costume, envied Magnus the airy pink outfit. Some horns sounded, mostly a few cars back, but as Vegard passed he saw drivers laughing and pointing and waving, and some pedestrians with their phones out, taking pictures and recording video of the herd as it flowed across, some of them baaing for good measure._ _

__He roved out onto Pløens Gate, and Bård raced around to cut him off. They’d made sure the costumes afforded as great a range of vision as possible, for safety, but there was still no eye contact through the black mesh of the mouths. Nevertheless, they were in close contact, and Vegard could feel Bård in the back of his mind, checking, always checking. His younger brother had been a bit clingy since March. It wasn’t a thing he objected to. Vegard still had bad moments, now and again, when memories of the winter would rear up and swallow him. He’d gotten much better, and part of the reason for that, he was sure, was that he could reach out to Bård and get a few words of comfort, a reality check, and a reminder to breathe; and that Bård always seemed to know when things were getting to be too much, and could intervene. And sometimes it was Bård who needed comforting. They’d been separated for the very worst of it, and that was one of the things that had made it the very worst. So Bård stayed close, and maybe later it would feel like too much, but right now it was okay._ _

__Now they were on Kirkeristen. Bård snuck up behind a couple of sheep who were having an animated chat. “ROWF!” he shouted joyously, and they jumped with twin shrieks, and giggled. Laughing, Bård threw his arms around their shoulders and exchanged a few words with them before moving off._ _

__Vegard made his way to the opposite edge of the crowd and struck off again. This time three or four others followed him. He felt a flutter of trepidation: what if something went wrong? What if they got hurt because they were following him, and it was his fault? He took a deep breath. The panic was there if he wanted it, but he didn’t, really. Nice to have a choice; for that first couple of months, he hadn’t. He stayed close to the group, kept close watch over the four following him, and wordlessly let Bård know that he needed reining in._ _

__

__

: _You good?_ : Bård asked. 

: _I’m okay. I’m good._ : 

__A minute or so later, Bård rounded the back of the crowd, yapping and nudging, and drove everyone back into the main group before trotting up between two waiting cars and pretending to lift his leg over a tire. The driver honked, and Bård bayed, and several sheep let out distinctly unsheepy cheers._ _

__Vegard ran to the front now, and struck out at an angle. This time, Calle was the one who got him, reaching out with his crook and hooking it under Vegard’s collar, dragging him back as he yelped. It was a brilliant move, and he hoped that the cameras had gotten it._ _

__He dropped back, now, to the rear, falling behind the group. Magnus chased him a little, and he ran in circles until the big man got his arms around him. There was nothing fake about Vegard’s astonished bleat as Magnus lifted him right off the ground._ _

__“Naughty lamb,” Magnus tut-tutted. In Vegard’s ear he whispered, “Is the wolf a glamour?”_ _

__“ _Huh?_ ” Vegard was so surprised that when Magnus dropped him, he nearly fell in a heap. “Wolf? Where?”_ _

__Magnus reached out to right him, and frowned, and gestured with his crook at the sidewalk, which was thronged with people, some of them going about their business and some of them filming or taking pictures. “He’s been in and out of the crowd. It’s a very good costume. I thought... well, you know. There!”_ _

__He pointed with the crook. A grey shape was moving behind people, keeping pace with the flock. That was unmistakably a wolf walking on two legs, and Magnus was right; the costume was extremely realistic._ _

__

__

Glamour was the web of illusions that, among other things, enabled Norway’s magical people to walk among humans without fear or danger. Most humans, anyway; both Bård and Vegard had been gifted, by a dear friend, with contact lenses that allowed them to see through glamour. Now Vegard whistled the soundkey to activate the second layer of magic, which would let him see things hidden even more deeply. 

__The wolf was now an elf, small mercy, although the only werewolves he’d seen in the Oslo area were Wulver missionaries. The elf was too tall and fair to be a svartalfr, and too short and dark to be a lios alfr. He carried what looked like a camera bag._ _

: _I see him,_ : Bård thought. : _All right, let’s get everyone to Karl Johan’s Gate._ : The street was reserved for pedestrians, which made it no fun for the sketch, but it was their emergency backup. If they had to deal with a wolf, they needed to be someplace where their extras could safely disperse. 

“Karl Johan’s Gate,” Vegard told Magnus. This deviated from the route they’d handed out at the beginning, so he ran to the sheep nearest to him. “Change of route.” The sheep spun, recognizing his voice, and Vegard put his hands on the sheep’s shoulders and whispered, “We’re going to Karl Johan’s Gate. Pass it on.” He walked to another sheep, and another. On the other side of the crowd, Bård was doing the same, a bit more aggressively, in keeping with his role. The elf kept pace as Kirkeristen became Kirkegata, and the sheep poured into the market square, much to the delight of shoppers. Vegard wondered briefly if he was being paranoid again, if this was a fanboy. They did have fans in the elven community, and maybe this one had heard about the shoot and figured he’d bring his own comedy. But then why would he be slinking and skulking behind the crowd? More to the point, why would he be launching himself at Bård like that? 

__There were gasps from the flock. Vegard snatched the crook out of Magnus’ hands, and tossed it to Bård, who caught it neatly and used both ends to block and jab at the elf. The crowd, sheep and spectators alike, oohed and aahed. Even if Bård’s medial temporal lobe didn’t remember the stave training he’d gotten in 2007, his basal ganglia and cerebellum did. All things considered, Vegard was a little sorry that they would have to scrap this footage, but the other thing they’d learned in 2007 was that glamour, like any other kind of magic, played havoc with ordinary cameras._ _

__But the opponent had been trained too, and trained well, and Bård was only just holding them off. Vegard edged closer, trying to figure out a way to get the elf away from his brother._ _

__All at once, the elf lunged past Bård, bringing Vegard to the ground. The padded head of the costume fortunately kept him from cracking his skull on the pavement, but the jolt disrupted the glamour filter, so that it was a slavering, snarling wolf crouching over him._ _

__A paw reached up under the costume’s head, groping. “Just a hair,” the wolf barked. “A hair, and we’re done. It’s for a good cause, Vegard. To make your people listen. If you understood you would both be happy to help.”_ _

__Vegard caught the paw. “Who are you?”_ _

__“That part doesn’t matter. Please co-operate. I don’t want to have to be invasive.”_ _

__The army had taught him how to get out of this kind of position. He got up on his elbow, bent his knees as far as he could, and with his plush cloven-hoofed hands together, he used his attacker’s thigh for leverage to pry the wolf off balance, turn over, and twist away, which twisted the costume’s head around so that he couldn’t see anything at all. The wolf growled, and behind him he heard Bård’s muffled shout. And then there were more shouts, and a thud, and a yelp._ _

__Many hands helped Vegard scramble to his feet. He righted his costume’s head just in time to see the wolf surrounded. One of the sheep brandished a cane, and looked ready to use it again._ _

__Bård stood at the edge of the action, dog’s head under his arm, sweaty and beaming. “Our fans really aren’t that sheepy, are they?”_ _

__The crowd parted--leading _away_ from the brothers. Two hundred pairs of long-lashed cartoon eyes followed the wolf as it slunk away._ _

__“Thank you,” Vegard said to the sheep with the cane. “You just saved my mutton.”_ _

__“Think nothing of it,” she said. “I’m sorry I didn’t do it sooner, but until he knocked you over I thought it was part of the show. You’re not hurt, are you?”_ _

__“No, no, no. Are you okay?”_ _

__“Never better,” she said cheerfully. “Who was that guy, anyway?”_ _

__Vegard gave the thought a dismissive wave. “Guess he read the call for extras and got his own ideas.”_ _

__“We’ll edit him out of the footage,” Bård said. “I don’t mind people wanting to come out and have fun, but assaulting people is not something we want to reward.”_ _

__“Shame,” she said, and there was a note of tension in her voice. “Those were incredible moves. Excuse me, though.” She put her cane down, and started to lurch away. “I have to get moving. I get very sore when I stand in one spot.”_ _

__Calle jogged up. “What the hell happened?”_ _

__“Attacked by wolves,” Magnus deadpanned._ _

__“One wolf,” Vegard corrected. “Not even, really.”_ _

__“Is this what I think it is?” Calle said softly, and his expression was grave, but it was hard to mistake the light in his eyes._ _

__“Bibbity bobbity boo,” Bård agreed, grinning. “Well, gentlemen, shall we finish our segment?”_ _

As everyone resumed their places relative to the extras, Vegard thought to Bård, : _I’m pretty sure the wolf was trying to get a DNA sample from me. Before we get going, I’m going to call Helene and tell her to keep an extra close eye on the kids. And you should call Maria. And get her to say something to Lindy too._ : 

: _Good idea. And the cousins. You’re okay?_ : 

: _I’m okay,_ : Vegard told him. 

Calls were made, and then Bård’s voice rose above the noise of the crowd. “Okay,” he shouted, “let’s get the flock out of here!” 

***

__Bård dabbed at his lipstick with a tissue, and made a little kissing motion in the mirror. He grinned. Good stuff. He was getting better at this. Someone online had complimented his eyebrows the other day. He thought about it, and then he closed his eyes and gathered the satisfaction with his makeup into a glittery ball. He thought it should be pink, but it was a shimmering blue-green that reminded him of dragons._ _

__He went to the garden in his memory, and planted it in the rich soil. Never knew when pretty might come in handy._ _

Probably this was silly, probably it was nothing and he was just jumpy after everything that had happened last winter, but the wolf the other day had put him on edge. He was glad that Vegard had made him keep and cultivate his memory magic: most of the time, magic made him feel like he was barging in on someone else’s world, playing with dangerous forces he didn’t understand. But you couldn’t put the genie back in the bottle--couldn’t undo it, he amended, resolving to think up another simile because djinn _did not_ like bottle jokes. They had only ever tried to do the right thing, but what was right changed depending on where you were standing, and thanks to their mucking around, the name “Ylvis” meant quite a different thing to the elves and Underjordiske who quietly shared the world with humans. And Vegard had been right during that terrible autumn: they couldn’t afford to turn their backs on something so powerful. 

__They were both still feeling the effects. Bård was okay, he supposed. Vegard, on the other hand… it wasn't that Vegard had lost his innocence; you couldn't really say that about a thirty-eight-year-old father of three whose career depended more heavily than most on willy jokes. He was still as honest and forthright as ever, because he didn't seem to know any other way to be. He was even as willing as ever to play uncomfortable pranks on people. After the ordeal of the previous winter, Bård would have expected his brother to be a bit skittish about any sort of activity that might invite disapproval. But no, Vegard was up for it. But before, where he might have been embarrassed or uncomfortable or nervous about people yelling at him, or about the possibility of hurting someone, he now had flashes of insecurity and raw terror. At odd times, too: hardly ever when he was pranking someone; more during ordinary interactions. At the bank. In traffic. Ordering food. Bård would feel secondhand adrenalin flood his system, only to discover that the barista at Espresso House had told Vegard that a particular pastry had been discontinued._ _

__Bård would also feel the next moment: Vegard talking himself down, mastering the fear, rationalizing people’s responses. The moments were far less, these days. Vegard hadn't wanted to see a professional, and he had refused Brynjar’s offer to spend an afternoon tinkering with his mind--not that Bård blamed him in the least for that one--but he seemed to have some sort of arrangement with Finn. Finn called Bård every Wednesday, ostensibly just to chat, but sooner or later the conversation got around to Vegard, how he’d been that week, whether anything had set him off. Vegard would go over to Finn’s for dinner on Thursdays, and then on Fridays he’d sleep in. If he didn’t sleep in, he was very weird. Bård didn’t ask for details, but he’d watched, with great relief, as Vegard’s stress levels had crept down, as he’d gotten less jumpy, as he responded to fewer situations with outright panic. He would have thought that something like the wolf would have Vegard back on edge, but from here Vegard looked fine. Happy, even. The fall and winter had hurt him terribly, and taken a lot away from him, and he’d spent months putting himself back together. But it had had its compensations, too. Bård hadn’t pressed, hadn’t even asked. He’d given Vegard time, and it was a relief to see his brother excited to test himself, to see what he could do now._ _

__Now Vegard knocked, and opened the door, and frowned at him thoughtfully._ _

__“So.” Bård pitched his voice in his best approximation of a fangirl. “Am I pretty? Do you think Justin will notice me?”_ _

__“I heard this wasn't even his worst concert disaster,” Vegard said. “At the Air Canada Centre, they made a terrible mistake setting everything up.”_ _

__Bård raised one perfectly sculpted eyebrow at him._ _

__Vegard grinned. “All the seats faced the stage.”_ _

__Bård rolled his eyes. In his normal voice, he said, “Come on, though, how do I look?”_ _

__“Paint doesn’t matter; you’re always beautiful inside and out.”_ _

__“The standards are a little different for this bit,” Bård reminded him. “Anyway, I’ll settle for beautiful outside, because if people are seeing inside there’s something terribly wrong.”_ _

__“If you told me they were doing it in Hollywood I wouldn’t be a bit surprised,” said Vegard._ _

__“Sculpting livers… contouring pancreases…”_ _

__“Kidnazzling.”_ _

__“Lindy's been laughing at me," Bård said. “She says we could do all this with glamour. I told her it would interfere with our cameras, and she says to just get magical cameras.”_ _

__“It's almost worth doing, just to see the accountant's face when we try to explain it to her,” Vegard said._ _

__“I wouldn't want to, though. Your glamours kind of suck anyway.”_ _

__“Right. We'd have to hire someone to do them. And then we'd have to explain why to Asta, too.”_ _

__Bård pulled on a pair of pink sneakers and let Vegard precede him outside, dipping into his brother's thoughts. Vegard was more concerned about his class tonight than he was about the wolf. If he wasn't troubled, Bård resolved not to be._ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Suggested musical pairing: Ozric Tentacles' "Erpland" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LzYJfRnedkA


	2. Continuing Education

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Summer fun in Oslo #2: Taking a class / The little spoon / Finn cooks an egg

“For our last week, we’ll be studying the Pieraklad Configuration, so I’d like you to read to the end of Chapter 37, and pages 597 through 633 in your packages. Have a good week, everyone.”

All around Vegard were the sounds of chairs scraping, people getting up, saying polite goodbyes, or sharing muted conversations. Bård, who rode along for these lessons, unobtrusive in the back of his mind, had ironically dubbed this place Hogwarts. With or without glamour, it was one of the starkest, ugliest buildings either of them had ever seen. Vegard had the idea that the elves had made it that way deliberately; that they thought ugly architecture would be a punishment, or a deterrent. He wondered if there was anyone that actually worked for. It seemed to him that it would just make people miserable, and miserable people seemed more rather than less likely to commit crimes.

Vegard finished transcribing the last of the diagram off the lightboard, checked to make sure he had everything, and then put his notebook away. When he looked up from his messenger bag, Frøken Skogsopp, the young svartalfr woman who had been running these classes, was staring straight at him. 

“Vegard, do you have a moment?”

He forced himself to take a deep breath and dispel the thought that she was going to tell him there was something new, that it was all a mistake, that he would have to go back to jail now. “Yeah,” he said, trying to sound pleasant and eager rather than wary. 

“Relax, Vegard. I’m on your side.”

His side. So something was wrong. And she was taking his part in it, which was good of her, but oh god what was it now?

Bård’s presence had ebbed as soon as she’d ended the class. Usually he knit during class, but this afternoon he’d been out in his real-life garden. Now he came back full strength. : _It’s okay. Whatever it is, we’ll deal with it. All of us_.:

Comforted a little, Vegard carefully composed his expression as Frøken Skogsopp sat down across from him. 

“Nothing’s wrong,” she said immediately. “I can see I’d better get that right out of the way. I just wanted a little talk with you about your performance.”

Oh! “I’m sorry about number 38. I can never remember the difference between scry and summon.”

“It’s a common mistake. The way I used to remember it is, summoning curls up, like a beckoning finger. But I meant in general, Vegard. You’re one of my best students.” He opened his mouth to protest about that test he’d nearly failed last month, and she held up a hand. “Not just in terms of marks, although those are really very good. I understand you’ve never had any formal instruction before, but it’s clear that you’re really interested. You take reams of notes. Those questions that everyone rolls their eyes at? They’re good questions, from someone who just hasn’t heard any of this before.”

“Um. Thanks.”

“This course is over next week. Have you thought about what you’re going to do next?

“Bergen,” Vegard said. “Helene and I are going to visit our families and relax for a week or two. And then I have a, well, I have to do a work thing in Slovakia. What about you?”

She shook her head. “I have a week to write my reports, and then I get the next batch of you. But listen: I asked you because naturally this place doesn’t offer an advanced level, but I wanted to tell you, if you’re as interested as you seem to be, there are opportunities for you to go on. I can help you find them, match you up with resources, and give you a good reference. If you want.”

“Thank you,” he said softly. “That’s very kind of you.”

“It’s my job to help my students get what they need to succeed outside of the justice system,” she said. “And a pleasure to help someone who shows aptitude the way you have.”

“I’m very interested in magic,” he told her, “and I’m very grateful to you for this course, but I have my family and my work, and... it’s a little uncomfortable to say, but it’s more of a hobby that got me into a lot of trouble.” He passed a hand over his mouth, and gave her a shrug. 

She looked at him for a long time, a small smile on her face. “I’m a little curious about your phrasing,” she said finally. “I don’t mean to pry, and you don’t have to tell me if you’re not comfortable, but everyone who comes here says they’ve made some bad choices. Whether they honestly believe it or not, they say they’ve made bad choices, wrong choices. You just say you got into trouble. Normally that’s a red flag for us--the refusal to take responsibility for your actions--but I’m told that your sentence is considered discharged, and you’re here of your own free will. Those aren’t the actions of someone who refuses to take responsibility.”

He took a deep breath and met her eyes. “I take full responsibility, but I didn’t make a bad choice. I made an illegal one.”

Her eyebrows shot up. She pulled her chair closer. “That’s a very brave thing to say. ...Easy, easy. No judgment here. You want to tell me about it?”

“You don’t know my case?” he said. “It was all over the papers.”

“I saw the headlines in _The Alpha Chronicle_ , but I never went to them for my news. And I try not to read the crime pages.”

“I could tell you,” he said with a shrug. “I’m not ashamed, and it’s not a secret anymore.” He told her--about the changelings that Melantha had made of him and his brother, who had ended up saving them both, and the world. About using blood magic to heal one of them--he was very careful about not letting their names slip--from the point of death, and liberate them both. About the press finding out, and making him out to be some kind of superpowered supervillain, and the dálki showing up at Concorde to arrest him. About the offer the courts had made, that he could go free if he gave up his magic. About being approached in the prison realm by the Queen of Air and Darkness. She wanted to know where the magic extracted from prisoners was going, and she needed the help of someone who could get by without magic for awhile. 

Not looking at her, running his fingers anxiously over his upper lip, he told Frøken Skogsopp about letting the authorities tear out the little bit of magic that he did have, and the weeks of agony that followed. Because they’d believed he was so much more powerful than he was, they’d taken more than his magic. It had left him angry and desperate. It had also left him completely impervious to magic, including the deadly protections on the collection spells. He told her about travelling around the country breaking spells, about breaking into the compound in Jotunheimen and freeing the stolen magic, and reaching into that mighty storm to destroy the equipment. His own magic had come back, rushing back into where it had been torn out, into the much bigger hole that had been made for it. 

“So yes it was illegal,” he finished, “but you’ll never be able to tell me that saving him was a bad choice. I did all the things I was supposed to do, and now they’re done. But, but I’ve got all this extra magic that I didn’t have before. I’m only about half as powerful as they thought I was, but four times more powerful than I _actually_ was. So I need to know how to use it. So when Judge Sumpfot sent me the letter offering the course again, of course I wanted it.” He watched her face warily, rubbing the side of his neck. 

“I guess I understand why you were so jumpy, that first month or two,” she said slowly. “It sounds like you’ve been through a very difficult time.”

“I have. But it’s over. I hope it’s over.”

“Are you all right? Personally? If you think it would be helpful, I can connect you with a counsellor. Maybe a support group. What, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” Vegard shook his head. “I… one of our changelings had a really bad experience with a support group. But the other one had a really good experience. But he… He’s been… I… I think I’m okay now.”

She smiled. “Mead of Truth, huh?”

He looked up at her in wonder. “Yeah. How did you--?”

“It’s a standard home remedy for what the lios alfar used to call war-blight. And I’d wonder how a human got hold of it, but just by the look of you I think I know who your changeling is, and who his wife is. It’s okay,” she said rapidly. “I won’t tell a soul.”

Vegard sat wide-eyed for another moment, and then he took a few careful breaths. “Fiancée,” he said. “They haven’t set a date yet.”

“Congratulations to them! I love his show. It’s the best show on Omega right now, maybe the best all around.” She stepped back. “But I won’t pester you about it. You’ve clearly already got a good support system in place. Just remember, if you need something, my e-mail address is on the syllabus. I can’t guarantee anything, but I can hook you up with services and resources.”

“I’ll remember,” he said. “Thank you.” He took three more breaths, and then got to his feet. “See you next week.” 

“It'll be the last class,” she reminded him. 

When he got out of the building, he broke into a run. It wasn’t fleeing, really; he just had a _lot_ of nervous energy to get rid of. 

He ran to Kongsveien. He could have waited at one of the tram stops there, but instead he ducked into Ekebergskråningen. The forest was green and cool in the twilight. He waited, amidst the trees, to get his wind back. Birds called softly, and a cloud of gnats danced in front of him. A dragonfly hovered above them, scooping them up. Suddenly the trees above him rustled, and a little iridescent green dragon fluttered across his vision, snapping up the dragonfly before landing amid the ferns, rolling a few times, and scampering off into the undergrowth.

Holding notes in his mind, he wove a glamour, making himself invisible. It still wasn’t very good--the court-mandated magic classes didn’t teach convicted criminals a lot about how to conceal themselves, go figure--but he did have to practice. He added a generous dash of repulsion spell, so that in daylight people wouldn’t want to notice the shimmer he simply couldn’t get rid of, and those who did notice wouldn’t want to look. Then, because he hadn’t thought to bring his helmet, he added another kind of repulsion spell, one that would protect him if he fell. 

He walked southeast until he saw an end to the trees, and the greenery-covered shapes of walls and roofs rose in front of him. 

Focusing, breathing deeply and evenly, he sang one note and thought another, and in the space between them, he flexed his magic. It still felt like a joyous surprise, the resonance in his mind, the giddiness of _lift_. He rose a few centimetres into the air, just enough to be able to reach down and kick off. Now he was a metre or more above the ground, and he found a low fence that he could use to get even higher. 

He manoeuvred over rooftops and the wide lanes of Mosseveien. It irked him to head west to go east, but he was still learning, and it was safest to get out onto the water as soon as he could: he still had the bruises from his last spill. When he’d skimmed over the docks and was safely over Oslofjord, he changed his orientation, leaning forward a little, spreading his arms like a bird. Now he could head east, to Ormøya. 

The sun was still well above the horizon, and the harbour was full of traffic. None of the boats noticed him, thank goodness. The mosquitoes noticed, but the breeze took most of them away. The air was warm and smelled of the ocean.

He was about halfway across the water when he started to think about how good it would be to land. As the island grew and grew in his sight, it became harder and harder to hold on. This was one of his longer flights, and he only ever seemed to remember that he could _do_ it; never how taxing it was during. 

Trembling with fatigue, he made it to the rocky shore of his property, and landed in a heap. Thanks to the repulsion spell, it was an intact heap, but he was so tired that the impact was enough to disperse everything. 

When he’d rested on the warm rocks for a couple of minutes, he got up shakily, and tottered up the path to his house, nervous energy expended. All energy expended, really, but something about flight eased him deeply, and as he covered the last few metres home on legs that felt like jelly, he reflected that the way he felt now was worth a bit of bruising.

***

In the wee hours of the morning, eighty-eight-year-old Bjarne Næss awoke, feeling a whisper of discomfort, a flicker of fear. But he registered that he was warm, that there was someone sharing his bed, and the memories of the previous evening came flooding back, making him smile at their sweetness.

Strong arms embraced him from behind. Hands smoothed his hair. “Thou art loved,” a soft voice said. “I am here.” He felt a kiss on the back of his head. “All is well.”

Soothed, Bjarne lay back and let his lover’s touch ease him into a sleep more profound than any he had ever known.

***

Finn awoke in the early dawn with a crick in his neck and a small, soft, warm weight in the crook of his arm. He peeked down and smiled to himself. Riri was fast asleep against his chest. Her bottle had fallen, and was digging into his hip. She’d spit up on him.

There was plenty to do today. He resolutely shoved it from his mind. He was going to sit here and listen to the birdsong and the sounds of the city waking up around him, and hold his infant daughter, and just _be_.

He was nearly asleep again when he heard a door downstairs open, and another door close with a decisive bang that made him groan inwardly. 

Slowly and carefully, trying hard not to let the chair rock, he got up and carried Riri to her cradle, unable to resist kissing the downy top of her head before putting her down. She waved her little arms, and yawned without opening her eyes. Then he tiptoed downstairs to start his day. 

He laid the quarter-full bottle next to the sink, just as he heard a flush, and slipped out of the kitchen, with the intention of sneaking back into the bedroom while Ariadne was in the bathroom.

The bathroom door opened. “Good morning, Finn!”

Busted. He turned, and conjured up a weary smile for his soon-to-be mother-in-law, who stood immaculate in an elven-cut daygown, her red hair piled up in complicated braids. “Good morning.”

“Oh!” She was already bustling for the sink. “Mustn’t do that, my dear. The milk mustn’t sit; it will curdle, and bacteria will grow, and you’ll make your own dear little baby sick.” 

“She’s done with that one,” Finn assured her. “We sterilize them in the dishwasher. But listen, I have to get dressed for work…”

She raised her eyebrows. “So my daughter can do it for you, is that it?”

“…so I will deal with it while I’m waiting for my eggs to cook,” Finn finished smoothly. As he turned around, he heard muttering, and the unmistakable sound of liquid being poured down the drain.

He put his t-shirt and boxers in the laundry hamper. Melantha looked fast asleep, but as he lifted today’s clothes from the chair where he’d laid them out the night before, she opened one eye and said, “She awake?”

“Yup,” Finn whispered.

“You do anything wrong yet?”

“Yup.”

“You fix it?”

“Nope.”

She grinned, and put out a hand, and stroked his arm. “Good for you.”

He lifted his hand to her lips and kissed it, and then went to have his shower.

He’d started out liking Melantha’s mother. When they’d first met, she had greeted him warmly, and not stabbed him, and the latter especially counted for a lot with Finn. Although he would never say so, in the ensuing year he’d convinced himself that Ariadne was really quite nice, and that Melantha was oversensitive where her mother was concerned, her warnings far overblown. And then she’d arrived a couple of weeks ago, as soon as she could get time off she said, and been warm and kind and helpful. Finn was grateful for her wisdom and experience. And then…

He started noticing that he didn’t like to do things, anything, while she was watching. And upon further investigation, that this was because she usually had a better way of doing it, that she couldn’t believe he didn’t know already. “I’m beginning to see what you mean,” he’d told Melantha, bleakly.

Then, two days ago, he’d gotten home early, and they’d come in with groceries while he sat reading. “But I _do_ like him,” Ariadne had said. “Oh! Remember to lock the door, dear, you're not in Trondheim anymore. He’s very well-mannered, and very good with the baby. But what I’m trying to say is, it’s not _proper_ , especially not to make it permanent. I’m sure I don’t mind, but your poor grandmother… your uncles…”

“If Granny and Uncle Medriel and Uncle Bran don’t like the idea, then they don’t have to marry him,” Melantha said sweetly. “But I love Finn very much, and he’s the father of my child, so I’m going to, Mama.”

Ariadne’s voice dropped. “Your father was upset enough to contact me. He told me everything. He blames himself, and frankly I don’t disagree. Gods know your upbringing wasn’t perfect, but I thought we’d raised you better than this.”

“Finn is kinder and more decent than any of the _real_ \-- Frey, you’ve got me doing it now! He _is_ real, just because he was made a different way doesn’t mean he’s less real. And he’s the only man I’ve ever been with who’s smart enough to keep up with me without thinking he has to prove he does everything better. _And_ he does his fair share of the chores, and he cooks like a dream.”

“He does the chores _wrong_ ,” Ariadne muttered. “I don’t object to them being servants, but they should know how to do basic household tasks, and you most certainly shouldn’t _marry_ one.”

“He’s not my servant, Mama. He’s a person. He’s my _fiancé_. And there’s only one way that’s going to change, and that’s when he becomes my husband, whether you like it or not!” 

Ariadne’s tone changed, became less outraged and more wheedling. “But don’t you ever think--well, I know I probably shouldn’t say anything--” 

“Probably,” Melantha sighed.

“It’s just...” Ariadne was whispering now. “Do you ever think that poor Rhiannon is the way that she is because of the way _he_ is?”

There was a dangerous silence. And then Melantha said, “How would that be, Mama? Dark-haired? Brown-eyed? Blunt-eared?”

“Don’t be obtuse, dear. Incomplete.”

A hiccupping wail rose from the kitchen. Riri couldn’t have understood her grandmother, but Finn didn’t doubt she’d been upset by both women’s tones. He almost checked his first impulse, but then he was horrified at himself, that he'd let the prospect of social embarrassment stop him going to his daughter. He swept into the room and lifted Riri out of her carrier. “Heyyyyy, sweetie. What’s wrong, huh? Ohhh, I know, sweetie, I know. Come with Papa, and we’ll let Mama and Grandma talk, okay?” He took her upstairs, and changed her, and sat in the rocking chair and sang to her and made faces at her.

Long later, Melantha had come up, already baring one breast. From her eyes, she’d been crying. Finn relinquished the rocking chair, and handed her the baby. “Are you okay?” he asked.

She nodded, and grimaced as Riri began to feed. “Finn, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean what I said, it just slipped out. She… she _twists_ everything until I feel like I’m a stubborn little girl.”

There were tears in Finn’s own eyes, out of sympathy more than anything. “I know. She’s very good at that, isn’t she?”

Melantha laughed bitterly. “The best.”

“I forgive you. Sometimes I catch myself making the same mistake.” 

Riri pulled away and fussed a little, probably hearing something in their tones. Melantha shifted the baby so that she had a hand free, and drew his hand to her lips. “Oh, Finn. Oh, sweetie. I’m sorry.”

He shrugged. “It’s the messages we both get from the world. And look, no, look, I’m not trying to make you feel bad about yourself. That’s one thing your mother is welcome to be the best at. I’m just saying, if I slip up sometimes, even when I’m in a better position to know better than _anyone_ … you’re bound to too. We can only ever do our best, and I trust that you’re doing yours.”

She gave him a smile that faded quickly. “And what she said was unconscionable.”

“Yeah,” Finn had agreed. And when he’d come down for dinner, Ariadne had been all friendliness.

Now, showered, shaved, and dressed for a day at the office, he went out to the icily silent kitchen, and feigned surprise that the bottle was gone. “Ariadne, you didn’t have to do that. I would have.”

She put her hands on her hips. “Well, I want to do what I can to help out. Because it’s what a mother does.”

Melantha stabbed at her fried egg, and yolk bled out onto her plate.

Ariadne leaned over conspiratorially. “I told her to stop buttering her toast, and now she’s in a huff.”

“The crisis is well over,” Finn said. “I understand there’s plenty of butter.”

“Not for a young lady who wants to get her figure back,” Ariadne said, wagging her fork. “Don’t you agree, Finn?”

When the toast was in, Finn grabbed a plate from the cupboard, and put a drop of oil on it. Then he cracked a raw egg onto it, and cooked it with his rage. “It’s her body,” he said pleasantly, “so my opinion doesn’t really count, but if it did, I would say that she should do what she likes, bearing in mind that she has another person to feed.” There was a small, abrupt noise, and the heat made the plate crack into neat halves. He sighed, and got another from the cupboard, and shuffled his egg onto it. Then he whispered the halves back together before anyone remarked upon it.

Melantha shot him a grateful look as he joined them at the table, and not only for the slice of buttered toast he slipped her before going for the strawberries.

“My goodness,” Ariadne said. “Is that _another_ plate? It must be nice to have a dishwasher.”

“Mama, you’ve had a dishwasher for far longer than I have.”

And so on, and so on. Finn had overcooked his egg, and there was ceramic grit in it. Melantha had taken two bites of her buttered toast and then left it. Ariadne really wasn’t sure about this neighbourhood, and Finn should be so careful. She didn’t know about the warning Bård and Vegard had texted him and Melantha, and she wasn’t going to. 

Normally he would have lingered with Melantha. They would have read the paper together, and played with Riri, and talked over the day. But as loath as he was to leave Melantha to her mother’s tender mercies, she was better at dealing with Ariadne, and today his presence was making things worse, not better. He drained his coffee in a gulp. When he was able to take his bag and slip out the door and down the stairs, nearly an hour earlier than he usually did, he felt relief beyond measure.

The day was cool and overcast. Hooves scuttled on the pavement as Sleipnir came to greet him. This was the arrangement with Brynjar, that they would not travel alone for the moment. This morning had completely driven it out of his head. But Sleipnir was riderless. “Everything okay, girl?” Finn asked.

She nodded, and motioned with her head that he should mount. Brynjar had still had things to take care of when she left, and they were going to pick him up afterward. 

She took them to a little wooden house in Bagn. It was sound, but it needed painting, and the yard was overgrown. The windows were uncurtained, flung wide open. He knocked, and Brynjar called to him to enter. 

Even with the airing out and the smell of Jif Allrent, the house still had the unmistakable odour of a sickroom. The little washer-dryer was running. Brynjar’s grey duster hung on a rack among many, with his walking stick leaning up against an aluminum walker. His brother leaned heavily on the countertop in front of the sink in nothing but a pair of tighty-whities, finishing the dishes. 

Finn took up a tea towel and started drying. The place was clean, but unevenly so: the floors had just been scrubbed, were still wet in spots, but on top of the picture frames--the pictures were babies, a boy and a girl, a man and a woman getting older and older--was a thick layer of dust.

The dryer finished a load. Brynjar threw another one in, the last from the looks of it, and then Finn helped him hang curtains. After that, they tackled some of the dust.

When they were finished, the last load of clothing was dry. Brynjar disappeared into a back room for a few minutes, and re-emerged damp-haired in jeans and a sweater, limping badly. “Ceramic floors,” he explained as he sank down in a chair at the kitchen table. “One moment more, Finn. I must making a phone call.” 

He didn't need an actual phone to do this. He closed his eyes. “Andreas. Hanne. This is Brynjar Kvam. I are very sorry to inform you that your father has died at home, in his sleep. He speaked of his love for you, and for his dear departed Aslaug. He were a good man. My condolificences.” He opened his eyes--there were tear tracks on his cheeks--and heaved his slender body upright. Limping to the door, he threw on his duster, picked up his walking stick, and opened the door. “Shall we, brother mine?”

“Dude. You have the _weirdest_ one-night stands.”

Brynjar's eyes softened. “Bjarne have understood since the nineteen-nineties that he were not attracted to women, but loved his late wife dearly and did not wish to vexicate her or his children. I thinked to give him an evening of fulfillment to ease his passage.”

Finn raised an eyebrow as he climbed onto Sleipnir’s back. “Safe, right?”

Brynjar paused to greet the eight-legged horse, and she whuffled his hair. “Always.” As he mounted, he asked, “How goeth your own battles, Finn?”

Finn rested his forehead between his brother’s shoulder blades. “Ariadne’s like a black hole. Makes the entire household revolve around her while sucking the light out of everything. I’m just trying to hang on until Tuesday. Maybe they’ll have suggestions for dealing with her.”

“I hopes,” Brynjar said, reaching back to pat Finn's curls.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Suggested musical pairing: The Dresden Dolls' "Coin-Operated Boy" - https://youtu.be/j4gPZPKJc0s


	3. The Second Attempt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Outstanding in their field / A bad seal / He does go through them / Ground rules / Calle leaves a note

This afternoon Finn was taping an interview with Lilje Fen, a naiad who had written a book about the struggle for self-determination in Scandinavia’s waterways in the aftermath of the Victory of the Light. But this morning they and Jessalyn were the interviewees on a midmorning talk show. They showed up at the studio, where they were greeted warmly and shown to a green room.

Jessalyn was waiting there for them on the overstuffed couch. She grinned up at them, and then her smile changed, and she rose. “Finn, I know you’ve got a bad infestation of the Mumsies, but Brynjar, why do you look like you’ve been trampled by a herd of blenders?”

“Bad date,” Finn explained.

Brynjar shook his head sadly. “Very good date that I would not had changed for the worlds. But I does not know how full-time psychopomps do it. Or housekeepers.” 

A lios alfr who introduced himself as Dan came to do their makeup, blending away under-eye circles and redness, and contouring away the residual puffiness from Brynjar’s tears. No sooner had he left than there was a knock at the door. “Gentlemen,” said a young lios alfr with a beard, carrying in a tray of tea, cream, sugar, and cookies. “The station has provided these for your refreshment.”

Hot on his heels was one of the hosts, Erik Barlind, a young svartalfr with a ready smile and a purple suit. “Fancy!” he exclaimed. “Is it okay if I take a cookie? Humble hosts don’t get these.”

Brynjar started to protest, but Finn shot him a dude-don’t-be-like-that look. “Of course,” Finn said.

The host passed the plate to Brynjar, who said, “We will not partake, thank you.”

“Won’t we?” Jessalyn challenged.

“No,” Brynjar said, quite firm.

Erik asked them a few preliminary questions, took some notes, and then ran out to start the show, promising that someone would be back for them. He took a couple more cookies.

“I don’t care what you say,” Jessalyn said, reaching for one. “Breakfast was a long time ago, and I’ll chew carefully.”

“Thou wilt be much impaired,” Brynjar cautioned. “As I would had said earlier, have my darling brother not preventated me, they are idiosyncratically seasoned. Lookinging, I suspect addling magics.” He gestured at the screen, where the show was starting. Erik was glassy-eyed and stumbling over his words. His cohost, Mariposa Tiriel, was eying him very curiously.

Jessalyn dropped the cookie, and rubbed her hands on the arm of the couch. “Freyja! Are they trying to make fools of us?”

“It were very hard to see into the person who bringed them,” Brynjar said, “but although he meaned well, his words to us were a lie.”

“This is what Bård and Vegard were warning us about,” Finn said.

“What did they warn you about?” Jessalyn demanded.

“Someone’s on the prowl for Ylvis DNA,” he told her. “I don’t know if they have our secret, or if, or if… Well, someone was bound to notice sooner or later.”

“Are you sure it’s that? We tick a lot of people off, boys. I don’t have any Ylvis DNA, and I got a hundred and forty-three death threats after the Luotettavuus story.”

“What?” Finn shrilled. “You never said anything!”

“I just assumed you were getting them too.”

“We were, but…”

She shrugged, and then grinned. “How many marriage proposals?”

“Eighteen,” Finn said.

“Thirteen,” Brynjar said.

“Seventy.”

“Clearly you win,” Brynjar said. 

An intern poked her head in. “Thirty seconds, folks,” she said, and her brow wrinkled. “There’s a little… it’s a little…”

“We know,” Finn assured her.

“Folks,” Jessalyn echoed softly, as they slipped into the corridor. “It was for you.”

“How figures you?”

“Because the person who brought them in said _gentlemen. Id est,_ not me. I would have been collateral damage.”

On the screen, Mariposa Tiriel was saying, “Their show _News from Nobody_ is the top rated comedy, and the fourth highest rated show of any sort in magical Scandinavia. The _Kontratrylleformularen_ has called them the wiliest comedy trio since the Three Norns, and the _Grenselander_ compares them to Ylvis. Please give a warm welcome to Jessalyn Aruviel, Brynjar Kvam, and Finn Weber!”

The three of them strode out on stage, nodding at the cheering studio audience. They hugged Erik and Mariposa. Erik, also clearly collateral damage, hugged Finn hard, and planted a sloppy kiss on his cheek.

“So,” Mariposa said, “is everyone feeling good today?”

“Up until thirty seconds ago I would have said yes,” Finn replied, gesturing at her co-host, “but I’ve got nothing on Erik here.”

“Yeah,” Mariposa said uncomfortably. “Well…”

“I don’t know what this is,” Erik insisted with a weak laugh. “I haven’t, I haven’t…”

“I can explaining this,” Brynjar said, holding his hands up. “A person claimifying to work for the station gifted us with tea and cookies in the green room, and although we three were cautionful, Erik partaked.” Amid the ripple that went through the audience, Brynjar fixed the grey eye on him. “I sees no danger, but drive not. And perhaps the crew might spiriting away the tray for evidence and notificating the dálki?”

In the glimpse of backstage Finn could see from where he sat, people burst into motion. Mariposa said, “You three sound far more relaxed about it than I would. Does this happen to you often?”

The brothers spoke simultaneously. “No,” Brynjar said. Finn said, “Yes.”

“Not this specifically,” Jessalyn said with a winsome smile, “but we have had adventures.”

Erik had stopped wringing his cue cards, and now fixed them with a bleary stare. 

“If you need to stop and get checked out,” Mari said to him _sotto voce_ , laying a hand over her microphone, “upstairs’ll understand. I’ll _make_ them.”

“Show goes on; not giving ‘em the sa’sfaction,” Erik said through his teeth, and turned back to their guests. “You were instrumum… immer… You brought down Alpha and broke the election scandal. In Marsh. March.”

“We cannot taking full credit for that,” Brynjar protested.

“But let’s back up a bit,” Mari said. Finn felt for her; he’d had a co-host out of commission before too, and it was an awful feeling. “Tell us how all of this got going.”

They had rehearsed this part very, very carefully. “Um… well, people know who Jessalyn is. Obviously.”

“They know who my _father_ is,” Jessalyn interjected.

“And Brynjar and I were born near Kristiansand. We’re mostly human, mixed with a stew of other things. We moved around a lot when we were young, and we weren’t very well off, which put us in contact with a lot of people you don’t really see that much or that well represented on elven media. And then when Fenrir escaped a year and change ago, we were sort of in a lucky position to help. That’s how we met Jessalyn.”

“What were you doing before?” Erik asked. 

“I workeded with a very large family firm, doing landscaping,” Brynjar said. “We maked windbreaks, controlled erosion, and used carbon dioxide exchange systems to clearify the air. And we did it all with solar energy,” he added, which won him a round of applause.

“And I was in fruit production,” Finn said, before it had quite died down.

“He are being too modest,” Brynjar said, thumping him on the shoulder. “He were outstanding in his field.”

“When I met them,” Jessalyn said, “they had no idea who I was, and they’d never heard of my father. Do you know how refreshing that is? They were cute and funny and very helpful, and when it was all over we thought of a way we could work together again.”

“That’s when you first encountered Ylvis, too,” Mari observed. 

“Yes and no,” Brynjar said. “They are our cousins. We has been aware of them all our lives, and followed their work very closely. It is remarked often that we resemblify them somewhat.”

“Does the comparison bother you? I mean, humans just named them the funniest comedians alive in Norway, but to everyone else, they’re troublemakers, and one of them has gone to prison for black magic.”

“We are _honoured_ by the comparison,” Finn said firmly. 

“They’re good guys,” Jessalyn added. 

“We runned a piece on the law that Vegard breaked. It are bigoted, targeting magics used predominantly by the svartalfar, particularly those in the tunnels. In fact--”

Finn leapt in, because if Brynjar got going on this, he could monologue for a solid half hour. “Well hey, we brought a clip. Want to take a look?”

***

The dálki were waiting for them when they got offstage. “We’re just getting Sealed statements from everyone,” one officer, who’d introduced herself as Elandiel, said. “We’re about a third of the way through the crew.”

If Finn got out of this without being arrested or impounded, he was going to have to do something nice for his face this week. It was maintaining a politely neutral expression through an awful lot of drama today. “All right.”

An Officer Etriel took him into what looked like the crew’s break room. 

“Straight up,” Finn said, “I don’t consent to be Sealed. I, I, I’ll tell you the truth, but it’s a principle thing.”

Etriel snuck a look at the door. It was closed. “Good for you,” he whispered. In a normal voice, he continued, “It’s your right, Mr. Weber, and anyway this is really just a for--” There was a sudden, tremendous racket. “Just a moment,” he said.

Finn waited. And waited. And waited. He tried to take deep breaths. Probably it was going to be all right. No one would need to know he was a changeling. Why would they ask something so ridiculous?

He got up and paced the room. There was a little coffee pot in the corner. He probably didn’t need anything making him more jittery right now. But here, right next to it, were sugar cubes, and after being denied cookies, wouldn’t a mouthful of sweetness be just the thing? Except that it was clearly staff sugar, and he was not a staff person, and he’d caused enough trouble already, hadn’t he?

On his eighth circuit of the room, his resolve failed. His fingers were centimeters away from the bowl when the door opened again, and he bleated and snatched his hand back.

“Mr. Weber,” the dálki officer said. A different officer this time. Older, a svartalfr wearing an elven-cut suit that suggested a rank of verikoira or higher. “I’ll be taking over your interrogation.” 

Finn returned to the table, and sat. “Sure. Yeah. Sorry.”

The detective smiled. “You’re nervous, Mr. Weber.”

“Yeah, a little.”

“Why?”

“Um… well. Someone just tried to drug me. We got, um, we were warned that someone might come after us.” 

“Oh? Who warned you?”

And the verikoira should at least offer the Seal before starting to ask questions, but Finn wasn’t going to push him. Maybe they were going to drop the wretched practice, and that would be all right too. “Bård and Vegard. Ylvisåker. They said someone tried to attack them, and it… it sounded like they might go for us next.”

The officer pulled a notepad out of his pocket, and scrawled something. “Mm-hm? And why you specifically?”

“Because… because…”

“Because you’re their changelings, aren’t you?”

Finn nodded, because he didn’t trust himself to speak.

“All right, Mr. Weber. Now that that’s established.” He reached out, touched Finn’s forehead. 

A glyph. “But I don’t consent,” Finn yelped. “This isn’t… this isn’t…” He was going to lodge a complaint, he thought, as the spell settled over him, and kept settling, and settling… and settling. It was sinking into him, far deeper than the Seal of Luotettavuus should, filling his head with bright crystalline magic. And it kept on sinking, until he was gasping for breath, until it would be far easier to surrender and let it tell him when to breathe. “Not a Seal,” he wheezed. “It’s not a… not…”

The verikoira stood over him implacably. He’d set down his pad of paper. Finn saw that the marks that he’d made were just doodles.

His body wasn’t his own anymore. His head drooped, his curls swinging in his face.

Finn sank into himself, not in resignation, but with purpose. He called on the reserves no spell could touch, chasing threads of light down the warp and weft of the tapestry of the world, anchoring himself, holding steady. 

***

Brynjar was ushered into the green room by a young officer who introduced herself as Officer Thalael. She was twenty-seven, a lios alfr, craving scallops today for reasons not even she fully understood, and reluctant to tell her parents that her svartalfr roommate was actually her boyfriend, even though they thought that the two would be perfect for each other and were beginning to worry that their daughter was some kind of bigot. “All right, Mr. Kvam. We’ll make this quick, so you can get on your way.”

There was a hammering at the door, then. “Get that not,” Brynjar begged, but she made a placating gesture, and slipped into the hallway.

Brynjar sighed, and got up to follow her, but he was achey and exhausted and couldn’t get to the door in time. He winced as the casting struck her, and limped back to his chair. Why did no one ever listen to him? 

A few seconds later, a man strode into the room, and sat down across from him. Heavily shielded in something refractive, so that his grey eye was dazzled. This was old magic. “I’ll be taking over, Mr. Kvam.”

“What does you want of me?” Brynjar asked.

“You’re Bård Ylvisåker’s changeling, are you not?”

“With all the due respect, that are between me and those I choosing to share it with, and I choose you not.”

“Are you telling me you’re not going to cooperate, Mr. Kvam?”

Brynjar stopped trying to look at his plans and motives, and turned his attention to other things that were easier to see. “That mole on your collarbone are cancer. Your youngest daughter finding the treatments excruciating. Your eldest son are addicted to glow. You has a grandchild. I cannot see if you knowing that, but your son thinks you do not. He are very frightened.”

“We can walk out of this room together, Mr. Kvam, or I am happy to bind you and carry you.”

Brynjar smiled gently, and, hands on the edge of the table, heaved his slender form into an upright position. He took up his walking stick, and hobbled out of the room, followed closely by the false dálki officer. When the man was through the door, Brynjar whirled, and drove the blunt head of the stick into the man’s belly. The big elf went down, the wind knocked out of him. 

The floor manager stared at him wide-eyed from behind her clipboard. “Mr. Kvam!”

He wrenched open a closet door, showing them the bespelled form of Officer Thalael. “Please seeing to her.” He opened another door, and found the officer who was supposed to be taking Finn’s statement. “And him.” Then he flung open the door of the break room, and found a man looming over Finn’s slumped form. Brynjar broke his walking stick over the man’s shoulders. The intruder turned and casually backhanded Brynjar, slamming him into the wall. Brynjar’s leg gave out on him and he went down. The attacker grabbed a handful of his shirt and hauled him up.

Behind him, there was a delicate clearing of a throat. The face of Brynjar’s assailant crumpled, and he folded up like an accordion, sobbing. 

Finn helped Brynjar to his feet. “Are you hurt?”

“Only bruised, brother Finn. And you?”

Finn’s eyes weren’t focusing properly. “Foggy. I’m going to feel that in the morning.” He prodded the quivering figure with a toe. “I know that was probably really harsh, but he tried to steal my will!” He picked up the pieces of Brynjar’s splintered stick and handed them back to him. “Guess I owe you a new one, huh?”

Brynjar sighed. He asked the pieces to knit together, and they did, but with a gentle admonition that this was only temporary. “I does go through them, doesn’t I?”

The dálki burst in, five of them, burners drawn. Brynjar dropped his stick with a clatter--it went to pieces again--and both brothers put their hands up. 

“What did you do?” Officer Etriel demanded, moving to the fallen man. 

Finn looked sheepish. “I just… I tried to make him as afraid as he made me.”

The officer holstered his burner, and beckoned. “Come on. Let’s get your statement right now.”

“Finn,” Brynjar said.

Finn glanced back, eyes wide and wild.

“The dálki has known we are the Ylvis-changelings for a year and longer.”

“You’re _what_?” one of the officers shrilled.

“Oh, yeah,” said another, quickly. “It’s in their files, Xan. Don’t worry, guys; we’re not here about that.” She raised her eyebrows at her colleague. “And if we were, there’s a riddari in Bodø who would gleefully take us apart.”

Finn sagged with relief, and then they took him away.

***

Vegard got a text notification, and glanced at his phone. It was from Finn, to him and Bård.

> 1st of all, EVERYTHING IS OKAY
> 
> Ur wolf friend tried to kidnap us  
>  He didnt want our DNA he wanted US  
>  Tried to drug us  
>  Got the interviewer instead  
>  LOOK IT IS OK  
>  BUT we had 2 talk 2 the dalki  
>  & they are coming over 2 get ur statements  
>  V I told them u had a bad experience  
>  Think of ground rules  
>  U can refuse seal

Vegard took a couple of deep breaths. The dálki were coming. _For his statement._ He hadn’t done anything.

: _We’re just going to talk to them,_ : Bård soothed. : _We haven’t done anything illegal._ :

> V u ok?

He rubbed his chest, comforted somewhat by the slow friction across his skin, and concentrated on taking slow deep breaths.

> I’m okay. I’m coming over later tho. & you’re getting me drunk. 

> Fair enuf  
>  WAIT NO  
>  MIL visiting  
>  Ur place? 

In the end, it was surprisingly little trouble. Vegard told them that he would be more comfortable with two conditions met, and wonder of wonders, they listened. First of all, he didn’t want the Seal of Luotettavuus. The Seal zapped you if you didn’t tell the absolute truth, and while he’d managed it three times without too much of a problem, the last time he’d been tired and scared and talking about things he was too stressed to remember properly. He’d gotten into a spiral of telling the truth the best he could, and being zapped, and then wanting to say whatever would make it stop hurting him, and being zapped, and… The solution he and Bård had found at the time was for him to tell his story without the Seal, and then say under the Seal that that was the best he could do. That would probably work again, but after _News from Nobody_ had run a bit on how many innocent people it had put away and how many guilty people it had set free, Finn and Brynjar had urged people to exercise their right to refuse it. And it was better that way, really, and Vegard was grateful that the officer saw it that way too.

The second condition was that he wanted someone else in the room with him, not so much to check the dálki as to give him moral support. Bård couldn’t do it, because he was giving his own statement, so Vegard chose Magnus. Calle would have been a good choice too, but he was less involved and if they were going to involve him, it should start off on a better foot. Magnus was a great gentle monolith of a man, and he’d been there for the worst thing that had ever happened to Vegard. In the fog of shock and horror and agony that had followed the extraction of his magic, it had been Magnus who had picked him up and carried him home. Calle would probably be better in a fight, but this wasn’t going to be a fight; he needed someone who would help him calm down, and Magnus would do that. 

And it was working. He was sure that if the dálki wanted to, they could push him over the edge into panic, but they weren’t trying. They let him breathe, and gave him time to answer, and didn’t give him trouble about his body language. They were investigating assaults on two dálki officers and three minor celebrities, two of whom happened to Ylvis’ changelings--this the officers knew and accepted--and if the wolf incident shed light on it, they needed to know about it. 

He did the best he could. He always did.

***

Calle rummaged around in Magnus’ desk for the fourth time. Paperclips, spare pads of paper, graph paper underneath, postage stamps, a nice pen, another nice pen, a crummy pen, a dictionary, a rhyming dictionary, a thesaurus, a Norwegian-English dictionary, a Norwegian-Swahili dictionary, emergency chocolate--confirmed still fresh, just like the one he’d snuck two minutes ago--a little basket of USB keys, a part from _something_ , nicotine gum, regular gum, a stack of notebooks that he pretended to leaf through…

“What are you looking for, Calle?” Kamilla asked, coming up behind him.

“Notes from last Wednesday,” Calle said, as if preoccupied. “Never mind. I’ll leave him a note. He can get them to me when he’s done with Vegard.” He pulled out one of the pads of paper, and sat down with one of the nice pens, and Kamilla went back to whatever she was doing.

Calle snuck another glance at the offices. Through the glass walls, he could see Vegard all knotted up in his chair, one hand vigorously rubbing the side of his face. But Magnus, with him, looked relaxed, and the visitor was relaxed too, slouched a little, looking at her notes instead of Vegard as her lips moved. And Bård, in his own office, looked even more relaxed, draping himself halfway across the table, with his chin propped up on one fist, while the other visitor bent over his own notes. 

Probably--and this was just his private theory--Bård was being extra relaxed for Vegard’s sake. They were telepathic, after all. Calle couldn’t see through glamour, but he could recognize the cut of a suit well enough, and he knew that the last time the office had been visited by someone with that kind of suit and such fine angular blond good looks, Vegard had left with him, and everything had gone to hell. 

It had begun before then. In March 2016, the brothers had disappeared. Both of them. A package of books had arrived at Concorde, with a note that said they were going to be out of the office for a little while. A couple of weeks later, Calle’s phone had started spontaneously playing what he first thought was an old Brynjar Kvam segment from the brothers’ old radio show on NRK. But Bård’s Nynorsk newscaster was talking to Magnus, and Helene and Maria, and to Calle himself. He’d told everyone to warn their families to stay in. And he’d told Calle and Magnus to drive. Avoid the tunnels and drive. Sixteen hours later, in the north of Sweden, Bård and Vegard had piled into the backseat, dirty and exhausted and with an air of grim triumph.

Vegard had told an incredible story. They’d met ghosts and nightmares and spirits and gods. They’d been kidnapped by elves. They’d learned to be wizards. They’d acquired evil twins. They’d saved the world from a secret, silent Ragnarok that had been going on all around them. Vegard periodically dozed off while telling, and Bård had taken up the thread of the story. 

At first Calle thought they were kidding. Really, what choice was there? Then, when Vegard got sick, he thought delusions might have been an early symptom, and Bård had just been humouring him. Then there had been that Hallowe’en when they’d shown him. Just little tricks, perhaps manageable with squibs or fishing line or something. Perhaps. And then...

One day in November, shortly after they’d gotten the last visitor, after there had been a lot of tense conversations he wasn’t privy to, Calle had come to work and it hadn’t been Vegard there. He had looked and sounded like Vegard, and Bård didn’t seem to notice a difference at all, but it wasn’t Vegard. His body language was subtly different. He looked at people differently. He was friendly and civil with Calle, but avoided him studiously. The one time Calle cornered him, Not-Vegard had changed the subject, started reciting the specs of the Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird. Calle had heard of a disorder that convinced you that your loved ones had been replaced by fakes, but it wasn’t everyone. He couldn’t shake the thought that this wasn’t Vegard, but someone trying hard to _be_ Vegard.

He’d talked to Magnus about it, then. Magnus had enthusiastically agreed that yes, something was weird, something was wrong. In early December, he’d pointed out, in hushed tones, that Vegard’s Pepsi Max bottle was filled with _coffee_. 

Calle had shown up a bit late the next Monday, and none of them had been there. They’d all dragged themselves into the office, Magnus too, looking shaken. “Magic?” Calle had asked Magnus as the large man walked past him.

Magnus had shot him a stricken look, and shaken his head. “Not anymore,” he whispered. When Calle had pressed him about it later, he’d said, “It’s over, it’s done. I just want to forget about it.”

Vegard had returned in January. Actual Vegard. He looked like hell. He refused to sing, got upset at even the prospect of it. He was a bit clingy with Calle for the first week or so. Calle saw him playing with a blue thing. He finally slipped into Vegard’s office again, and said, “Is anyone going to tell me what’s really going on?”

Vegard had smiled a gentle, exhausted, broken smile. “No.” Then he’d said the same thing Magnus had. “It’s done, it’s over.” And as he’d said this, he’d teared up and turned away. Calle put a hand on his shoulder, but Vegard shrank from his touch, and Calle went back to his own office. 

His private theory was that someone had kidnapped Vegard and replaced him with another one of those evil twins. Maybe they'd made him sing for them, and trying to sing now just brought it back. And Bård had managed to win him back somehow, at great cost. He’d badgered them both mercilessly until they went on vacation, first Vegard, and then, finally, Bård. They’d come back happy and restored. Vegard had sung again. He’d seemed light, almost giddy. A little jumpy sometimes too, for the first while. Nobody said so, not in so many words, but it was understood that Vegard was to be handled gently, given space, forgiven certain additional weirdnesses.

So if no one minded, or even if they did, Calle was going to wait right here, where he could keep an eye on both offices. Realistically, he didn’t know what he could do if they tried to take Vegard or Bård, but he wouldn’t let it happen.

He doodled, while he sat, so that he would at least be making marks on the paper. A man riding a unicycle across a tightrope. 

Movement made him look up. Bård and the one stranger were standing up. Bård reached across the desk and shook his hand, and then they left the office. It looked cordial enough, but when Bård accompanied the man through the office to the stairs, Calle tensed. If he followed, could Magnus protect Vegard? But here was Bård, coming back, with a careful eye on Vegard’s office. He stopped at Magnus’ desk. “Still at it?” he murmured.

“So far,” Calle said. “If he’d tried to take you away, I wasn’t going to let him.”

“I know,” Bård said, squeezing Calle’s shoulder. “It helped.”

Now the stranger with Vegard and Magnus was standing. Vegard unknotted and scrambled to his feet to shake the hand she offered. Magnus stood too, inclining his head gravely. She let herself out of the office. Neither man offered to accompany her.

“All done?” Bård said, leaning against the desk. 

“Yes, thanks,” the officer said, and flashed him a smile. “I did my best to be non-threatening.”

“We appreciate it,” Bård told her. “Let us know if there’s anything else we can do for you.”

“We will,” she said. “And you’ll of course call us if you experience another incident.”

“If we know it’s a matter for the dálki,” Bård said. “I’m sure you wouldn’t want a call if kids keyed my car.”

“It depends which kids, Mr. Ylvisåker,” she said with a twinkle, before heading for the stairs.

“Dálki,” Calle echoed, rolling the word over his tongue. “That’s what those are?”

“Elf cops,” Bård sighed. “And no I won’t call them. There are good ones and there are bad ones, and I think we just got some good ones, but can you imagine putting Vegard through this every single time?”

Calle glanced at Vegard’s office. He met eyes with Magnus, who opened the door and slipped out to join them. Vegard had turned and was sitting at his keyboard, headphones on, eyes closed, back bowed, his fingers wandering over the keys. 

“It went okay,” Magnus reported. “He said he needed a few minutes.”

“Thanks for doing that for us, Magnus.”

“You’re welcome. I’m pleased it went well, because if it hadn’t, I don’t know what I could have done.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Suggested musical pairing: We The People's "Every Move" - https://youtu.be/MSeDr6n7OXw (and sorry about the guy who won't quit talking over the intro)


	4. Liða

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Not therapy / Invocation to the Muse / A magnificent hangover / Therapy / The golden road

Calle stood up, and let Magnus take his desk back. He hovered outside of Vegard’s door, watching his friend hunched over the keyboard. No matter the instrument, it had always been a little mesmerizing to watch Vegard when he was absorbed in his playing, leaning into the music, bobbing his head and shaking his curls. Both brothers, but Vegard especially. It didn’t matter right now that Calle couldn’t hear what Vegard was playing; he could read it. And he could see when Vegard’s posture unlocked, when the furrows disappeared from in between his eyebrows, when the arm that reached out and tickled the high notes did so with an easy little flourish. The music had done its job. 

He gave it another five minutes. Then stood at the door, alternately knocking and waving his hand in front of the glass until Vegard noticed him. He took off the headphones, and motioned Calle in. The smile on his face was washed-out but genuine. 

“You okay?” Calle asked.

“Yeah. Yeah.” Vegard waved dismissively. “Rough meeting. Well. Less rough than I thought it would be.”

“If it helps, I could grab my guitar...” 

“The offer sounds very good, but I arranged a, a thing. I called someone. When I heard about the meeting.” Vegard rubbed his collarbone. “To help me afterwards. Sort of... therapy, I guess. Not therapy. I don’t think of it like that, but that’s what you could pretend it is if you wanted to.”

Calle nodded. He could hardly believe it--Vegard thought talking about feelings was painfully boring, and he sometimes expressed funny old-fashioned ideas that it might be unmanly--but if things were bad enough that even he’d sought help, it couldn’t have been easy for him, and Calle couldn’t give any less than his full and unwavering support. “All right. If you think of something I can do...” 

Vegard looked moved by this. He nodded, misty-eyed, and without another word put his headphones back on and went back to playing.

***

“Okay,” Finn said, one arm resting easily on the leg he had up on the bench , the other holding his shot glass high. “There are three things you should know before you quaff the Mead of Truth.”

Upon reflection, Vegard hadn’t felt right about deliberately getting drunk--even therapeutically drunk--under the same roof as his children, and Finn understood that. Vegard had tentatively suggested his boathouse--“There are life jackets we can pile up and sit on,” he’d said--but then Brynjar had offered them the use of Valaskjolf, and they’d both leapt at it. Which meant, as much as he promised not to interfere, that Brynjar was a part of it now. Which meant that it would have been weird not to invite Bård. If Vegard had been in worse shape, anyone extra might have been out of the question, but he assured Finn that he was surprisingly okay, just the kind of shaken that an evening with family and friends could ease. Not only that, but he’d refused an invitation from Calle for this, so it was going forward in whatever form it could. So now they all sat at the great feasting table, surrounded by the remains of moose vindaloo and baingan bharta and rice, with shot glasses of mead. 

“Number one, it’s strong stuff. I have a bit more left than I thought I did, but we don’t have to drink a lot of it for it to be really, really effective, so sip it. Number two, _under its influence you will not be able to lie._ If you’ve got a secret, well… you don’t anymore. Which, to be honest, is probably no big deal for two telepaths and a guy with an all-seeing eye and a very idiosyncratic sense of personal boundaries, so the only one who has any reason to be nervous is me, so at this point I’m just running my mouth. Which is exactly what I do when I get nervous. But happily, number three, even if by the end of the evening we all know way too much about each other, the Mead of Truth puts all of those memories of what we learn under its influence in a nice little golden bubble, so that while we can learn from them, we can’t actually remember them. Until we drink more Mead of Truth.”

“Wait,” said Bård, “what’s the good of learning if we don’t remember? I’m confused.”

“You shouldn’t be,” Vegard said. “That’s what happened to us after 2007.”

“Well,” Finn said carefully, “say that we’re drinking and you tell me that you’ve secretly hated me all along. When I wake up the next morning, I won’t remember it. I might possibly remember that I learned something uncomfortable, but try as I might, it won’t come to me. But I’ll know that I shouldn’t call you to hang out.”

Vegard frowned. “That’s a depressing example, Finn. Here’s how it works: if we’re both drunk on the Mead of Truth and I teach you how to play the piano, when you sober up you’ll know how to play the piano, but you won’t know _how_ you know. Well, you’ll put it together if you’re smart. Or, like, if it would make you feel better to talk to a friend about something that hurts, and you don’t want it to be uncomfortable afterward, you have the Mead of Truth and talk about it, and you feel better, and maybe even do some of the things they said if they had advice, but neither of you remember it.”

“So we are basically letting ourselves in for an absolutely consequence-free night of shocking revelations?” Bård demanded. 

“I drinking to that,” Brynjar said, raising his shot glass aloft. 

Four voices cried, “Skål!” 

Finn sipped, and immediately felt the threads of gold begin to steal across his mind. But… they were settling in odd places. Was it because of the company? Did the truth you were compelled to tell change if you were telling it to three people, instead of just one? 

Vegard frowned, and opened his mouth, and said, 

“Something is strange here; it doesn’t feel right.  
This is not what we drank of on previous nights.  
It feels like it’s lighting up diff’rent locations,  
with effects that that go deeper than mere relaxation.  
I recognize, somewhat, the things it’s imposing.  
Feels less like recalling, and more like _composing_.” 

Brynjar said, 

“I must agree. | Something is amiss.  
Find and consult | the flask’s contents.  
It tastes of mead | and not mortal poison.  
Yet I desire to know | what we have drunk.” 

Finn checked the bottle, and shook his head in perplexity. It was the same small unlabelled jug that he and Vegard had been drinking from all spring. But--it had seemed fuller, when he’d picked it up today, and maybe that hadn’t been his imagination after all. 

It would be easy to leap to the conclusion that this was part of what had happened this morning, but Finn didn’t think so. Why make such an attempt in public if the culprit had access to Finn’s liquor cabinet? 

Vegard and Brynjar were staring at Finn in consternation, but Bård said, 

“Wait, you think that something’s wrong?  
It tickles, sparkles, fizzes, bubbles.  
I could almost break into song  
You’re saying that it’s somehow trouble?” 

Munnin flapped down from the beams of the great ceiling, and settled on Brynjar’s shoulder, nibbling the man’s ear. Brynjar said, 

“Rather, your delight | relieves me.  
Muninn has furnished | the needful facts:  
Midgard makes many | magical meads.  
‘Tis not poison, nor | Truth, but Poetry.” 

Finn pulled out his mobile phone, and dialled, but there was of course no coverage at all in Asgard. Brynjar smirked, and rested a hand lightly on Finn’s arm, and put him through. 

Melantha answered. “Finn! You’re not done already, are you?” 

“Speak, Melantha! Tell us, I entreat,  
wherefore the Mead of Truth has fled my grasp,  
the Mead of Poetry left within its place.” 

“What? Oh, Finn. What have you been doing? Has Mama gotten herself into hot water?” 

“ _Skalding_.” 

“Bloody hell. Just a sec.” Melantha’s shout was muffled, but still very loud. “MOMMMM! It’s Finn.” Her voice had turned as dangerously honeyed as the mead itself. “He would like a stanza with you.” 

“Hello?” 

“My lady, Kindly One, I beg you, tell  
me all I ask, for where I sought the Mead  
of Truth, I found instead the Mead of Poetry.” 

“It doesn’t sound bad on you, Finn. I felt like a drop of something nice, and I had no qualms about finishing it up, because Melantha shouldn’t be drinking anyway, and you shouldn’t be making free with her liquor cabinet. But I replaced it. With a little more than you had before, so I don’t know why you’re complaining.” 

“Indeed, mistress, it is so that Truth  
may hold a grain of Poetry, and Poetry  
likewise a grain of Truth, but the two  
may not be interchanged. My comrade’s wound  
goes to the soul, and I myself obtained  
the mead, thereby to speed along his healing.  
It vexes me that you, who needs no help  
to speak her mind and all that seethes within,  
have taken what was meant for him, and drunk  
it up without informing me at all.” 

“Well,” she sniffed, “I didn’t know that my taking a simple drink in my own daughter’s house was going to interfere with your night of carousing. The Mead of Poetry isn’t cheap, you know. And I thought you might find it more useful, in your profession.” 

Finn felt a stab of guilt, but the Mead of Poetry did seem to have its own uses. Limned in gold, vistas of the past opened up to him, showing him that this was not a new situation, that what she’d said had echoes across the centuries. And it furnished for him a range of responses, and endless chronicles of the consequences. He eyed Vegard, who was running the backs of his knuckles slowly back and forth across his jawline, and said, 

“Good dame, my comrade’s hurts this day are slight,  
and your presumption harmed him not this time.  
Don’t think that I begrudge a sip of mead,  
but it is luck that this was not more dire.  
And therefore, in the future, I prevail  
upon your goodness to inform me when  
you help yourself to what I’ve put away.  
Adieux, and now we pass the night in verse.  
I thank the gods it did not turn out worse.” 

Brynjar cut the connection. Finn slumped, and Bård and Vegard started applauding him. 

“Finn, I hope that there’s no trouble on my account.  
I need to de-stress, just a tiny amount,  
but an evening with friends is enough of a balm,  
and I’m already feeling a little more calm.  
Part of it must be the current parameter;  
Gloom can't survive anapestic tetrameter.” 

Bård chuckled. 

“True enough, so let’s relax,  
and spin out reams of crude nonsense,  
and gorge ourselves on booze and snacks.  
I just wish I’d brought instruments.” 

“Cousins, you’ll find | these congenial.” Brynjar went to a wall, and reached in, up to the shoulder, and drew out four leather-wrapped bundles.  
“A regular room | would rot them away.  
Here they stay pristine | in a time-pocket.” 

He gave Vegard the langeleik, Bård the lyngepause, and Finn the seljefløyte. For himself he kept a drum, and Valaskjolf rang with music and laughter. 

***

A Mead of Poetry hangover was _bizarre_. The world glowed faintly, and Bård’s brain felt like it did after an intense improv session, times forty. With some effort, he could speak in prose, but his internal monologue still rhymed, and every rhyme was immensely satisfying.

He was late to work, because he was too happy to hurry, and because a dryad stopped him on the street and asked him for a blessing. “I think you’ve got the person wrong,” he told her. “The god’s my cousin, Brynjar Kvam.”

She wagged her head. “He’s not standing here shining like a beacon in the middle of the street,” she said. So he kissed two fingers and touched them to the top of her head. She thanked him and went away, skipping.

He went straight to Vegard’s office. His brother was busy listening to the results of last night’s jam, and from the look of things he was transcribing lyrics, looking quietly, happily intense. “Plant this,” he said, without looking up. 

Bård shut his eyes. In his imagination he gathered the feeling into his hands, and knelt down on a patch of grass on his old walk to school. He scooped aside the turf and dirt and planted it, so that it could fuel later magic. There was plenty left over, when he opened his eyes, and it still pleasantly coloured the world in front of him. 

Sometime later, Calle wandered in. “You both look reassuringly chipper,” he said. 

“Last night we wrote, quite simply, masses of songs,” Vegard said, handing him a sheaf of papers. 

“Hm,” said Calle, looking them over. He snorted at a lyric, and then started chuckling, and then his knees buckled and he sank down against the wall. “Oh, god… These… do they come with melodies?”

With a few practiced pushes, Vegard glided his office chair into position behind the keyboard, and played a few samples. 

“Catchy,” Calle observed. Then his smile dimmed a bit. “So… last night…”

“We _expected_ , well you know, the thing that I said,” Vegard said, “but we drank the wrong mead, and got Poetry instead. One day--”

Bård cut him off. “We split them half and half between our cousins and the two of us. In three so far, of those I’ve seen, I think your voice would be a plus.” He handed over more sheets of paper, and they all worked at it together until lunch.

Over a song that was clearly a Vegard song, Vegard said around a smoked salmon sandwich, “If it happens again, let’s bring Calle along.”

“No,” Bård said immediately. He tried to cross a lyric out, and discovered that he was writing with a carrot stick. He ate the carrot stick, and grabbed a pen. “Too much chance it would go wrong.”

“Finn and Brynjar we’ve known for a year and a half, but Calle’s spent _two decades_ making us laugh,” Vegard said. 

“I’ve known you thirty-five years,” Bård said. “Winter was hell on toast. I… I don’t want to fear for two people I care about the most. No matter about the damage, he’d want to wade right in. But he doesn't have the advantages that we had to begin.” 

“He’s not foolish,” Vegard protested. 

“Not as a rule, but he’s with us, and we are fools. He would have fought that officer if he thought you weren’t safe with her.”

“Oh.” Vegard’s brow furrowed, and Bård could see him mustering good and convincing arguments that Bård didn’t want to hear right now. “But if he understood--”

“Maybe in a couple months,” Bård said in a rush. “When last winter is less fresh. When people stop going after _us_.”

“If they go after us and he's standing right there, he should know what he's facing. It's only fair. We should give him the truth, tell him how to defend himself. Do we trust Magnus, and not our best friend?”

“No one trusted Magnus, though,” Bård sighed. “It wasn't that we didn't, mind you. He figured things out on his own, and Finn got him to help him find you."

“It doesn’t feel fair,” Vegard grumped, stroking his upper lip, but he didn’t push it.

***

Finn’s support group met late Tuesday afternoon, in the back room of Tryllebøker. He’d been looking forward to it all week. Among his fellow changelings, some liberated and some not, he could speak freely about the challenges and the pleasures and the frustrations of fitting himself into the world.

They went around the room. He wasn’t the only one down in the mouth today. Ida Månedal and Zweinar Tørnquist looked forlorn and hollow-eyed. Ida had cut her hair short, and dyed it back blonde, so that she resembled her original far more closely. But she was quiet and subdued, and wouldn’t meet anyone’s eyes. “Work called me back,” she said quietly, and fell silent. 

“Ida?” Finn said gently. 

She cast a glance over at him. 

“Your new ‘do looks good.”

Her face crumpled then, and she burst into tears.

“Oh gods, I’m sorry,” Finn told her. “I didn’t mean to...”

Shaking her head, Ida slipped out of her chair and into the washroom. 

“I was just trying to say something positive,” Finn said in a small voice.

“I know,” Anna, the facilitator, replied gently. “Leave her be for a little while, and then afterward, there will be space for her to talk about it, if that’s what she wants. Zweinar, what about you?”

“I think she looked better before,” Zweinar said with a weak smile, “but I wasn’t going to bring it up.”

Anna shook her head at him good-naturedly. “You know what I meant, Zweinar.”

“Pass,” he said firmly. 

“Finn?”

“My mother-in-law is still visiting,” he said. “I’m beginning to see what Melly meant. She’s still friendly, but it turns out it’s the kind of friendly you are to a dog, or, or a child who doesn’t know better.” He thought that when he got started, the flow of words might never stop. He worried that Anna would have to shut him up, which would be a bad feeling, but it had been building up, and he had to let it out somehow. “I notice myself spending more time outside of the house, just to get away, but it’s not fair to Melly, to leave her with the baby all the time.”

Ida, red-eyed but otherwise composed, rejoined the circle. 

“She’s been badgering my fiancée not to marry me. Among other things. Says the whole family’s against it. Says it’s my fault our daughter was born with amelia. And I, and I... I’m…just…”

“How is it _your_ fault?” Ida demanded. 

“She thinks that because I... because I wasn’t fully human at the time, we might not have had a full baby.” Finn turned aside and wiped his eyes.

“I have some limited grasp of her logic,” Mr. Sniffles said, blinking, “but even if we accept that the elvenoid form is the ideal--and I’m not sure I do--it’s not the same kind of difference.” Sniffles was an unliberated changeling in the form of a schnauzer. His current owners were his maker’s children. 

“How does it make you feel when she says things like that, Finn?” Anna probed.

“Guilty. Angry. Frustrated. Not, I mean, not guilty because I think she’s right or anything. Most of the time. Guilty because I don’t do more to stand up to her. She does this to Melly, too, but I can’t protect her. When I try, I seem to make it worse. And I can’t stop myself being angry in front of my daughter and my fiancée, and I don’t want to be.”

They let him talk, and helped him reason things out. And then he saw the clock. “Oh gods,” he said. 

Anna leaned forward. “What’s wrong, Finn?”

“We were going to leave time at the end...”

“We have time,” she assured him, and turned. “Ida, we’re all a little concerned about you.”

Ida raised her head, looking horrified for a second. Then she set her jaw. “Well... it’s just... you know that Norway is not a member of the EU, but its banking laws are compliant with the European Free Trade Agreement, meaning that our banks can provide services for any other EEA member, provided that that institution has acquired a banking license under Norwegian law, namely the Act on Financial Undertakings and Financial Groups…”

“Ida, I’m going to stop you there and ask, is there anything about this that you think this group can help give you clarity on?”

Ida slumped in her chair. “It doesn’t sound like it.”

“Take the week to think about it, okay? We do want to help.” 

That was the cue to pick up their chairs and put them back, and clear up the tea things.

Finn was still wracked with guilt. His issues had dominated the discussion, when clearly something was still bothering Ida. She was one of the first ones to leave. He thought of going after her, to make sure she was all right, but Anna caught his eye, and gave a minute shake of her head. So he only thanked her, and caught the tram to the taping of _News from Nobody._

***

It was St. Hans, and the sun hung in the sky, turning the street into a narrow winding ribbon of gold.

Carl Frederik Hellevang-Larsen had finished his cigarette some time ago. Now he was just out here to soak up the light and the warmth. Longest day of the year. It seemed, as he got older, that the years passed faster. Tomorrow would be shorter, and the day after that, and the day after that, and before he knew it it would be winter. So right now he was going to enjoy what he had.

He was very happy. He had a beautiful family. Success. The satisfaction of excelling at a profession, aspects of which continued to give him terrible nerves nonetheless. He had everything that he wanted. And if at times in his youth, he’d yearned for something more than the world he knew, if there was still a part of him that ached to follow that ribbon of gold all the way to the horizon and see what was beyond, well, he’d learned that the world he knew was a rich and complex place on its own, wasn’t it? Ordinary existence was its own kind of miracle: an Oslo traffic jam was the product of billions of years of celestial upheaval, and millions of years of evolution, and thousands of years of technological innovation. This was all the magic that he needed. 

Sure, there had turned out to be more--he supposed it might still be an elaborate prank, but that would have required a degree of mean-spiritedness Bård and Vegard just didn’t have--but you didn’t get it just by wanting it, or believing in it. It didn’t work that way. 

Calle closed his eyes. The ribbon of light persisted in his vision as a bright afterimage.

Vegard had explained it to him, with his characteristic thoroughness. Something about Planck lengths and wave forms. Calle had understood the history part a bit better: after the Iron Wars had wiped out a third of the elven and Underjordiske populations, glamour had been cast over all of the Magifolkene, and magic had gone underground. Vegard and Bård had found it, or been found _by_ it more like, but in the first place, they were very weird; in the second place, it... demanded things of them. So he understood their reticence perfectly well. If magic was actually real, if it was a thing, then it was dangerous. It had run the brothers ragged and threatened their lives. It had hurt Vegard. And for what--parlour tricks?

No, Calle was quite happy with what he had. _Quite_ happy.

He opened his eyes, and saw a silhouette on the sidewalk. A man’s form, just standing. Facing him. Gradually, he picked out features he recognized. “Einar,” he said. “Well, this is a surprise! Why didn’t you call?”

There was something haunted in Tørnquist’s expression. “I need your help with something,” he said. “But you’re right, I should have called.” His face contorted momentarily, as if with great pain. “Shall I come at another time?”

“No, no,” Calle said, waving away the thought as he trotted down the front walk to join Tørnquist where he stood. “How can I help?”

“Walk with me,” Tørnquist said. “It’s just this way.” He looked very sad. “Are you sure?”

“Of course,” Calle said. “What’s wrong?”

“I think... Well you see, Tottenham Hotspur won three-nothing against the Blackburn Rovers at the May 28 match, with Baptiste scoring two goals and Martin one. Blanchflower and Pond never got off the bench. The Rovers fared better against Stoke City two weeks previous...” 

Calle followed Tørnquist’s monologue for as long as he could, but eventually he gave up and let the words wash over him. He didn’t know the man that well, but Einar Tørnquist had always seemed, to him, to be jovial and bubbly and full of mischief, and right now he was none of those things. He’d always been a bit obsessed with football, but not _this_ obsessed with it. His posture was different; his mannerisms were drastically altered. Maybe his emotional distress had done something to him. And maybe Calle should ask his doctor about Capgras Syndrome. 

Tørnquist fell silent and stopped walking. Calle stopped, and faced him. They were close to a major street now, and traffic passed, but the noises were far off, as if they were behind a veil. As if they were the only two people on the street.

“Are you certain, Calle? Are you willing? Please, think carefully.”

“Is this to do with magic?” Calle asked softly.

“It is,” Tørnquist said.

“You’re not....” He wracked his brain for the word. “You’re not with the dálki, are you?”

This coaxed a smile from Tørnquist. It was not his usual smile. “I am most certainly not with the dálki.”

“Then yes. I’m sure. Yes. I’d love to. Please.”

Tørnquist acknowledged this with a little nod. He blew softly on his fingertip, and then used the fingertip to write something on Calle’s forehead. 

A peculiar feeling stole over Calle, a moment of breathless pressure. Magic. Real magic. Brilliant white light opened up in his head, dazzling him. It dissolved his thoughts and made his limbs feel airy and detached. Belatedly, he wondered if he should have asked more questions. But the light was beautiful, and it burned away his trepidation. Everything was going to be okay. 

“Come along,” Tørnquist said, his voice gentle and resigned, and Calle found himself trotting along happily behind him, following the golden ribbon of road as far as it would take them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Suggested musical pairing: Afterlove's "Feeling Good" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9E04xCFUjk


	5. A Gunhilde by Any Other Name

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finn meets the Prime Minister / The visitor / Steakout / Summer fun in Oslo #3: Video games / The check-in

Finn normally looked forward to Fridays. The weekend had been for him, for carving and grocery shopping and wandering around the city with a sketchbook, and now for looking after his daughter and sleeping when he could and planning his wedding. It let him recharge before the whirlwind that preceded taping on Tuesday. Today, though, between what had happened last week and what he knew he was going home to, he propped his chin up with his hand and looked at the gorgeous July day and felt downright bleak. 

Erik Barlind and Mari Tiriel had sent a fruit basket, and now Finn became aware of a tangerine butting gently against his thumb. When it had his attention, it rolled until it reached Brynjar’s desk. “Can I helping?” Brynjar asked.

“Oh, probably,” Finn sighed. He’d daydreamed of Brynjar taking one look at Ariadne and telling her that her outrage was as fake as her jewellery. The trouble was, they were probably both perfectly genuine. “But the kind of help I would want is the kind that can’t be fixed afterward. Realistically speaking.”

“Gives me credit, Finn, I are capable of finesse.”

“I’ll invite her over for dinner on Saturday,” Jessalyn said, decisively. 

“Dear gods, Jessalyn, I will pay for dinner and a movie. And give you my immortal soul.”

“I’m not my mother; I don’t want your soul. And she doesn’t do movies. Cameras are filthy iron-wielder technology. But I might be able to find us a play or something.”

“Thank you, Jessalyn. Thank you. I am forever in your debt.”

She laughed. “For spending time with my own mum? The woman who gave me life?”

“And sucketh it away?” Brynjar murmured. 

“I have to _sometimes_ ,” she laughed. “It’s easier when I know it’s for a good cause.”

Cheered, Finn pushed himself to scan the last few pages of Tuesday’s script. It looked good to him, but he marked a spot where the timing would be very hard to get right. They’d have to make sure that played okay in rehearsal on Monday. Everything was set. The equipment was ready; the rental props were arranged, and they had backup plans. They were ready to go.

When they broke for the weekend, Finn and Brynjar walked out to the corner. Brynjar was going easy on his mended stick, and his left knee was bulked out a little with the knee brace that Finn had gotten him last Christmas. “Plans tonight?” Finn asked. Ever since March, he couldn’t picture Brynjar staying home on a Friday night, but after the disastrous interview they were still sticking together. 

“Seohee and I are dining, and spendifying the evening at the university library,” Brynjar said. Seohee was the human who had befriended Brynjar when he’d tried to give up his divinity last year. She’d brought him to her church, and it had affected him profoundly, although not in the way she’d been hoping for. “It have been awhile, and I do not wish to neglect my friends for romantical or theologistical differences.”

“So... no Sleipnir?”

Brynjar shook his head. “She are spending the evening with oats and a bushel of apples and a _Bojack Horseman_ marathon, and picking me up tonight. I will not be alone, brother; the tram is peopled, and I am not without defenses.” His brow furrowed. “But I thought not quite far enough ahead; we take the tram in opposite directions. Feel you safe to get home?”

“I’m riding with you to the city centre,” Finn said firmly, “you’re going to meet your friend, and _then_ I’m taking the tram home.” 

“Finn, that maketh nonsense.” 

“No, nonsense is me racing home to my mother-in-law. It’s a tram ride. You were so sure you could do it alone. Well, so am I.” 

Brynjar inclined his head, and they waited at the same stop. 

The sun was still high in the sky when they got to Jernbanetorget. A young Korean woman with curly hair, a round figure, and a beautiful yellow sundress was waiting in front of the Narvesen, and when Brynjar disembarked she advanced, waving. Brynjar turned uncertainly to Finn. Finn waved him off with a go-along gesture. He watched them meet on the sidewalk and hug, and then he turned away. 

Once upon a time, he’d felt lost and overwhelmed here. Now the crowds and the pace were energizing. For a moment, he allowed himself to think of the possibility of stealing a few hours here, seeing if Vegard and Bård wanted to come out, catching a show, maybe even buying a new spatula. 

Except that Vegard and Bård had been rehearsing heavily ever since they’d gotten back from Bergen, and anyway, he had to get home. But he also had a wedding to help plan, didn’t he? Surely half an hour of research wouldn’t hurt. And in the heart of the city, among crowds, he was sure that he’d have nothing to fear. 

He wandered through the pedestrians-only area, checking out dresses and suits, smelling flowers, running his fingers over satin and linen, exclaiming over embossed invitations and truffles and intricately woven illusions. Would spatulas be an appropriate wedding favour, or was that weird? 

He got as far as the colourful façade of the Nasjonaltheater before he thought of turning around, and even then, he kept rambling, wanting to stretch things out. 

But no, this had been just a pleasant detour. A little sadly, he crossed the street. Now, to catch the tram right back to Ekeberg, and go home. 

Except... 

He thought he saw a shock of reddish hair across the street. Zweinar? Was that Zweinar? And not too far ahead of him, Ida, elegantly dressed? 

Finn crossed back, and kept crossing. There was something weird about the way Zweinar was moving, hanging back and ducking behind things, as if he didn’t want Ida to know he was there. 

Ida went into the 7-11. Finn hesitated, and angled for her instead of Zweinar. He got honked at. 

Zweinar caught sight of him, and staggered back on the sidewalk. The shock on his face was almost comical. Finn grinned, lifted a hand in greeting, and slipped into the store. 

Then it was his turn to stagger back in shock. That was not Ida. “Vegard,” laughed Erna Solberg, Prime Minister of Norway, as she walked past him with her copy of VG, “you look like a hippie today.” 

“Thanks,” Finn squeaked, and backed up into a display of chewing gum. He watched her get into the back of a black Mercedes, which pulled away. 

He bought a skolebolle as a sort of apology for running into things. The cashier, all smiles, didn’t seem to mind. 

When Finn left the store, Zweinar was waiting for him. He caught Finn in a bear hug, and planted a bristly kiss on his lips. “Finn Weber, it is very good to see you.” 

“Um,” Finn said. “Wow! It’s, uh, good to see you too, Zweinar.” 

Zweinar put an arm around his shoulders and steered him in the direction of Theatercafeen. “Come on. I’m buying you a drink.” 

“Thanks!” 

They sat at the bar; Finn insisted on it. “That I never mentioned it is a measure of just how weird my life has been,” he said, “but someone tried to poison me a few weeks ago.” 

Zweinar blinked. “Really?” 

“Yeah. So until we get that worked out, I’d just like to be able to sit where I can see everything they do to my drink.” 

“Fair enough,” Zweinar said. The bartender opened their beers--a Nøgne ø Blonde Ale for Finn and a Weihenstephaner Weissen for Zweinar--and brought them over. “To Finn, for coming around at just the right time,” Zweinar said, gesturing in Finn’s direction with the bottle. 

“To Zweinar, for providing a welcome respite from my mother-in-law.” They lifted their bottles high. “Skål!” 

“So how did someone try to poison you?” Zweinar asked. 

Finn told him, about everything from the cookies to the night of poetry. By the end of it, Zweinar was grinning broadly. “So, the dálki are involved.” 

“Yeah. I know there are serious problems with them, but this time...” 

“It’s a comfort to know that they’re on it.” 

“Yeah.” 

“To me too,” Zweinar said. 

“Speaking of run-ins with organs of the state, that wasn’t Ida back there,” Finn said. “You were chasing after Erna Solberg herself.” 

“That would have ended badly,” Zweinar admitted. “Can I get you another?” 

Finn shook his head. “I’d love to, and thanks,” he said, “but I’m already going home late with alcohol on my breath, and you just know what Ariadne will have to say about that.” 

“Only in theory,” Zweinar told him. “I don’t really have anyone outside of work.” 

“What is it that you do, anyway? Is that a safe question?” 

“No,” Zweinar said. 

“Sorry.” 

Zweinar waved the apology away. Then something in his expression changed, and he cocked his head. “I don’t have anyone, Finn, but... well... Do you feel any sort of... protectiveness towards the people your original holds dear?” 

“What, Helene and the kids?” Finn met his eyes. “I’d die for them.” 

Zweinar’s gaze darted away, until he was studiously examining a point just beyond Finn’s left ear. “For example, I’m very fond of Gunhilde. I check in on her from time to time. I like to be sure that the people I care about are safe. Naturally. And I... I wonder if you feel the same.” 

“Of course! Zweinar, if there’s something you need to ask me, or say to me, or anything, you can say it. It’s okay.” 

Zweinar opened his mouth. Then something happened to his expression. “Liverpool are doing well this year. Did you see them against Sunderland? Weir and Harding are gold. And Stoney has to be the best left back in England, in my opinion.” 

“What? I... I guess. I don’t really follow...” 

“I think they’re going to go far this year. Very far. And Manchester too. All three domestic trophies in one year! Brilliant lineup this year, don’t you think?” 

“Zweinar?” 

The man’s face fell. Suddenly he looked very lost, and very afraid. “I could really use a hug, Finn.” 

“Okay,” Finn said, and got up and hugged him, long and tight, rubbing his back. Zweinar was trembling. 

Finally, they disengaged, and sat. Zweinar took a big gulp of his Weihenstephaner Weissen. “I’m not doing this right,” he lamented. “You helped me a lot back there, and I’m botching it up.” 

“It’s okay. I was a little awkward at first too. Still am. Life, _this_ , is hard. Even harder with...” The words died on his lips. _Harder with compulsion_ , he’d been about to say. The compulsions on him had been light. They hadn’t felt light at the time, they’d been a source of a lot of anxiety for him; but the more he interacted with his fellow changelings, the more he understood that it could have been a lot worse. Now he was liberated, and Zweinar wasn’t, and what if...? “Zweinar, have you been trying to tell me about something you’re not allowed to tell me about?” 

Zweinar recoiled as if slapped. “Not to say that Birmingham hasn’t had its moments too,” he said, still not making eye contact. “Berger has been a stellar keeper all season. You know, Potsdam finished first in the league during the season Berger played with them, and they had shutouts against Þór Akureyri and Glasgow City F.C.. Then she went to Paris Saint-Germain.” When the words ran out he sat, silent, for a few minutes. Finn watched him. Then Zweinar met his eyes again, and said, “All I want to say, Finn, is that if you have a Gunhilde in your life, I hope that she is doing well.” 

“I’ll look after all the Gunhildes I know,” Finn vowed. “But you’ve got me worried about _you_ , now.” 

Zweinar looked touched. “Thank you, Finn. Don’t worry about me. Worry, maybe, worrying is good, but not about me. Look out for Ida. Look out for Erna, too, for that matter. And most especially of all, for your Gunhilde.” He swigged down the last of his beer, and stood. “I should go,” he said. “One of these days soon, I hope you’ll understand how grateful I am.” He gave Finn’s shoulder a squeeze, and left. 

***

Tom’s first thought, when they told him that he had a visitor, was that Linn had ignored his wishes, and come anyway, and maybe even brought Bodil and Alexander, and he was assailed by waves of dread and selfish delight. And then guilt, of course.

But the person they brought him to meet was not his wife. He was a slight human, young--no older than three hundred or so, Tom thought, until he remembered that they aged differently and then he had no idea--with a long grey human-cut coat, long dark blond hair, and an ornately carved walking stick. He had handsome features, a slightly asymmetrical smile, and one grey eye. Tom knew that face from somewhere, he knew it, and it meant bad things.

The man extended a hand. Tom took it. “Brynjar Kvam,” the man said, and then it clicked.

“I’m so sorry for what we did to you and your brother,” Tom said. “I... am just so sorry.”

Brynjar inclined his head. “Forgiven.”

Tom didn’t quite believe that, but he said, “Thank you.”

“You wants to speak,” Brynjar said. “You wants to tell me you understand not, you know not how you did this, but you fear it will sound like excusifications. But I would hear you.”

“That’s... very kind,” Tom faltered.

“It are selfish,” Brynjar told him. “I had thinked that whatever plot you participacted in were failed and over, but my brother have told me something remains afoot. Thou art... not my only lead, but I have not his blessing to follow the others. And so I would hear what you tell me, of your part in this.”

“That’s the thing,” Tom said. “I don’t know. I don’t remember anything. I don’t understand how I... I was a copy editor for _Den Oslo Besvergelsen_ , and a family man, and I made some bad choices when I was young but that was all in the past, sometimes I go a week without even thinking about it, or I used to, and I don’t understand how I went from that to this all over again. I’m not denying that I did what I did to you, a lot of people saw me do it, but I don’t remember a thing, and I don’t remember anything that led up to it, and I, I can’t even imagine a set of circumstances that would have prompted me to... to do _that_.”

“What are the last thing that you remember?” Brynjar asked.

“Walking my daughter to school,” Tom said immediately. “Sorry. I. I went over this a lot with the dálki. They figure I’ve had about six months of memory wiped. The other guy too. He’s like, a little bit familiar? But I couldn’t tell you how or where. Neither could he, apparently. They put us in a room to let us talk, watched of course, and it was just... awkward.”

“You were walking thy daughter to school.”

“Yeah. It was a normal morning. I guess. I hadn’t had a lot of sleep the night before. My son had a nightmare--he has malignant precocity, his nightmares used to send everything in the apartment flying--so I was just sort of out of it. There might have been something I missed. There must have been something.”

“May I looks?” Brynjar asked.

Tom felt a flash of trepidation. He met Brynjar Kvam’s eyes, and understood that whatever he had done, he had done it to a man that he, now, did not want to mess with. 

“I will not hurting you,” Brynjar said gently. “I sees that you are telling the truth.”

Tom nodded minutely.

Brynjar didn’t do a thing; he just kept staring. It wasn’t the blue eye; it was the grey one. Tom couldn’t look away, and even when he did look away, it was still looking at him. Into him. Through him. There was something freeing about it. Something deeply healing. In those few moments, he felt small and safe.

It stopped, and he rocked back in his chair. He was aware that he was shaking, that tears were running down his cheeks. 

“Steady,” Brynjar murmured, bringing his chair around and wrapping his arms around Tom.

A guard reached in and knocked. “Too much touching,” she said.

Brynjar drew back. “Thank you for that,” he said to Tom.

Tom nodded, and took a couple of deep breaths. “Did you find anything you could use?”

“Your memory were not curtained off; it were excised. To my knowledge, this are very specialized magic, and not legal.”

Tom let out a shuddering laugh. “Well, yeah. Along with everything else.”

“Your son,” said Brynjar.

“He’s four. He, he can’t do anything that sophisticated. And he’s been much better lately. I think he might be growing out of it.”

“He are not improving,” Brynjar said. “He are in the grip of a very powerful magic, of the sort that shielded you from my sight at our previous encounter. The spell are wearing off, that much I can see, but he will be hurted when he emerges. He will need much care and support.”

Tom shook his head, incredulous. “But... I don’t understand. He’s been better. Calmer. Finally did what he was told. It’s not just me; Linn said so. A new treatment. But... whatever it was is gone along with everything else.”

“I can seeing only a little,” Brynjar said, “but what I can seeing is panic and agony that have gone on for months. Months that are lost as surely as yours are.”

Tim thought this through, and his eyes widened in alarm. “Do you think someone... used him? He’s four, he doesn’t understand. Do you think they used him to hurt someone the way I... I...?”

“I know not what to think,” Brynjar murmured. “My brother and I, we will finding out.”

Tom took a deep breath, and nodded. “I’ll have to tell Linn. Gods. She’s going to kill me.”

“She are thinking very seriously about leaving you,” Brynjar said. “She does not disbelieve you, but she have been very troubled that you keeped something from her serious enough to land you in Innilokun Ríki, and further, you will be gone for five years and she knows not how to raise your children alone.” He frowned, appearing to consider, and said, “When next you talk, tell her to call the Höðr Odinsson Centre. Canst thou remember that?”

“I can,” said Tom. “My son’s not a god, though. He’s just a, a damaged little boy who’s too strong for his own good.”

Brynjar rolled his eyes. “Has you spent time with gods, Thomas? No, I are thinking that the staff there will know resources for her and for your son, or know people who know resources.”

“Höðr Odinsson,” Tom echoed, his head sinking into his hands. “You’re one of them, aren’t you? I attacked a, a _god_.” He gestured at the walking stick. “Is that going to get better?”

Brynjar nodded. “My brother are carving me a new one.”

“Oh! I meant your leg.”

Brynjar smiled. “This are as good as it gets, and it were not your doing.”

“Oh. Oh. Sorry.”

“I are not.” Brynjar Kvam took up his stick, and used it to pull himself to his feet. He wobbled a little, and frowned at the stick. “I thank you for your service, Thomas Trussel.”

“But... I couldn’t do anything.”

“I has gained no answers, true. But mayhaps you have furnished pieces of answers, that I and my compatriots might assemble. For that you has my blessing.” Brynjar bent over him, and Tom felt lips brush the top of his head. With it, his fear and despair quieted, and he felt a spreading peace that accompanied him back to his cell, and eased him into sleep.

***

“Just there,” Maria murmured, pointing through the back window. “In the bushes. See it?”

“I see,” Bård said grimly. “How long has that been happening?”

“Since last weekend.”

“I guess the next question is, do we treat it like a rude fan with no sense of boundaries, or the return of the wolfman?”

“Neither,” she said triumphantly, pointing to a mass of dark curls. 

Bård went to the garden in his mind, picked some of the vertigo he’d planted during his last bout of the flu, and hurled it at the bushes. Maria advanced with a skipping rope, an old quilt, and a Super Soaker full of Lea & Perrins.

In short order, she returned with a damp staggering bundle that crashed to the porch the moment she let it go and lay there, slowly marinating. Bård peered down. “Those aren’t Vegard’s shoes.”

“And I couldn’t be sure, but it seemed like an awful lot of hair.”

“Hi guys,” Finn said weakly. 

They pulled the quilt off him and cleaned his glasses for him and helped him inside. Maria wanted to get him into some fresh clothes and sit him down in the living room, but he protested that for now he was just fine lying on the kitchen floor, thanks, and how was Slovakia?

“It was great. But why are _you_ creeping around our bushes on a Sunday afternoon?” Bård demanded.

“Because... someone told me the Friday before last that someone close to me... wanted looking out for,” he explained. “They weren’t really specific, but it wasn’t easy for them to tell me as much as they did, and I got the impression that they were taking a bit of a risk.”

Probed, he told them more. The informant was someone named Zweinar, who wanted him to look out for “a Gunhilde.”

“Zweinar,” Bård echoed thoughtfully. “Gunhilde. Christ on crackers, someone made a changeling of Einar Tørnquist?”

Finn closed his eyes. “I would be breaking my group’s confidentiality agreement if I told you who is or isn’t a changeling, but I think I can tell you, you’ve got the right Gunhilde. So I’ve just been poking around Heimli and here for the past week or so. If it’s any consolation, I haven’t found anything yet.”

“Is your mother-in-law still visiting?” Bård grinned. 

“I will admit, I haven’t minded the excuse to get out of the house, but I don’t particularly relish leaving Melly and Riri to Ariadne’s tender mercies,” Finn growled. He shook his head a little, and had to clutch the cupboards for balance. “I think it’s a little easier on Melly when I’m not there, though. I can’t protect her, and if I’m gone she doesn’t have to protect me.” He aimed unfocused eyes in their general direction. “This is something I can do. I’m sorry my lurking frightened you.”

“Not frightened, per se,” Bård said. 

“I should have just said something, I guess, but I didn’t know who he meant, and you’ve all been through so much that I didn’t want to scare you until I could be sure.”

“You’re barking up the wrong tree, though,” Maria said. “If you want the equivalent of Gunhilde, to Mr. Tørnquist’s changeling, that isn’t me or Helene, Finn. She’s his co-host. That means Calle or Magnus.”

“Oh no.” Finn pulled out his phone, and promptly dropped it on the ceramic tile. When he picked it up, a crack wandered across the screen. “Hell.”

Bård plucked it from his fingers, and found Magnus in Finn's contacts. He hit “Call,” and handed the phone back to Finn.

“Magnus? Yeah. Hi. It’s Finn. I just wanted to find out how you’re doing. What? No, I’m not drunk. I am very dizzy and covered in steak sauce, though. Long story. Bård’s fault. No, I just... someone said a thing, and I got worried, and I thought rather than worry I’ll just call. Okay, good. Well, just in case, maybe keep an eye out for weirdness. Good. Good. Later.” Finn handed the phone back to Bård, who hung up. “He sounds fine.”

Bård ran through Finn’s contacts, but Calle wasn’t among them. “I saw him yesterday, though,” he told Finn. “He stopped by to drop off a connector.” He pulled out his own phone. “You want me to give him a call?”

“I guess not if he was fine just yesterday,” Finn said. 

“But just to be sure, I’ll check in with him tomorrow, too.” Bård handed back the damaged phone. “You know what? The vertigo was my fault. I’ll pay to get it fixed.”

Finn struggled up, and pushed his glasses up onto his forehead. He sat for a few moments, blinked hard, and held the phone in front of his face, peering at it with wide dark eyes. The screen rippled a little, and was whole again.

“I will never get over that,” Maria murmured.

“One day I’d love to learn it,” Bård added.

“You make... That is, you ask... I... Let me think about it.”

They ran Finn's clothes through quick cycles in the washer and dryer while they waited for the vertigo to subside, and Bård drove him to the house in Ekeberg just in time to start dinner. He invited Bård in for a cup of tea, but Bård got the distinct impression that he didn’t want him to accept.

After his own dinner, Bård texted Calle, and got no answer. But that was all right; they’d see each other tomorrow.

***

Calle thought he heard his cell phone, and ignored it. It could wait. It was the weekend, and he was a guest in someone’s house. It would be rude to answer.

This was possibly the best video game he’d ever played. It was his friend’s, but he would have to remember the name of it, so that he could pick up a copy for himself. A little fuzzy on plot--he couldn’t remember why he was there or what his goal was--but the graphics were spectacular, and every sound was deeply, deeply satisfying. There were plenty of side quests that were just the right level of difficulty. 

Any minute now, his friend would be back, probably with snacks. Calle would ask the name of the game, and maybe check his phone, if he thought he could get away with it politely. But for the moment, he would get as far on this level as he possibly could.

***

Calle came to the office at ten on Monday morning. Bård greeted him warmly; he’d been going to give it ten more minutes, and then start worrying. “How was your weekend?” he asked.

Calle shrugged. “All right. Played games. Planted flowers. Saw my daughter. You’re unusually gregarious, for a Monday morning.”

Bård waved the thought away. “I’m still riding that sweet Pohoda high.” He felt an inquisitive little mental nudge from Vegard. “I’ll catch you in a bit,” he said, and went into Vegard’s office.

“I think that song about the barbecue would sound good with a harp track,” Vegard said. “Why are you worried about Calle?”

“Spot any cousins lurking in your bushes when you got home?”

“I saw Finn prowling when I was doing my magiotherapy exercises. I thought maybe his mother-in-law got to be too much for him, and he wanted to look at the ocean. Why, what does that have to do with Calle?”

Bård told him about the warning. “And Magnus is fine, so that leaves Calle.”

“But Calle looks fine too.”

“Probably, but I’ll just make sure.”

Vegard nodded. “Okay. And I’ll double-check Magnus later.”

Bård knocked on the door with the star-shaped name plate. At Calle’s nod, Bård slipped in, leaving the door just a little bit ajar. It didn’t feel serious enough to close the door. “Hey, Calle, weird question. One of our friends was a little concerned about our sidekicks. He wanted us to check on you, and make sure you’re...”

Calle’s face had gone blank and expectant. Bård waited for him to try and finish the sentence for him, or express bewilderment, or tell him he was just fine, that there was no need to worry. And then there was a rush of movement, and impact, and Bård was on the floor with the wind knocked out of him. 

He heard the door fly open, and Vegard’s exclamation of surprise and concern, and a second later, his brother was laid out next to him, groaning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Suggested musical pairing: Jon Anderson's "A View from the Coppice" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yox7K-dXQIM


	6. Henning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bad choreography / White light / Very much like treason / Summer fun in Oslo #4: Skateboarding / Dear old whoever / The company of wulvers

Bård waited, trying not to panic, and eventually his diaphragm unclenched, allowing him little sips of air. Vegard was curled up, panting and clutching his thigh. Kamilla, Magnus, and the rest of the staff crowded into the doorway of Calle’s office. Kamilla was covering her mouth with both hands. “My god, are you two all right?”

“ _That_ was a real hit,” Bård said in a strained voice. “We’re gonna have to rehearse that one better. Maybe get Thea in on it. I didn’t see; did Calle get through the rest of it okay?”

“Calle went tearing through the office and barrelling down the stairs,” Kamilla said.

The brothers helped each other into sitting positions, and propped themselves up against Calle’s desk. “Okay, well he’s got that part down,” Vegard wheezed. “We just need to work on the fight scene, ‘cause those were _really_ badly placed.”

Magnus offered each a hand up, and they trotted through the office, limping a little. The little crowd dispersed behind them. “Did either of us get him?” Bård asked conversationally as all three of them headed for the door. 

“I might have been a bit off when I did the elbow to the head,” Vegard confessed as he held the door open. 

“Well that’s it, then; an elbow to the head in the wrong place throws everything else off.” 

The door was closed, and they were halfway down the stairs now. Vegard dropped the façade and sagged against the railing. “Jesus, Bård, what the hell happened?”

“I said our friend had said to check with him and see if everything was all right,” Bård said. He hunched over and curled an arm around his stomach, but kept walking down the stairs. 

“So, this sounds like he’s not,” Magnus said. He offered an arm to Vegard, who took it gratefully, and limped to keep up. 

“He... I didn’t even see it coming. One second he was listening to me like he didn’t know what I was talking about, and the next I was on the ground.”

“Are you okay?” Vegard pressed.

“Just knocked the wind out of me. You?”

“Charley horse,” Vegard said through his teeth. “I just need to walk it out. And we need to find him. Where would he go?”

“We also need to let Finn know that he was right,” Bård said. “If he knows something we don’t, he might have some idea where Calle went.”

Magnus was at the bottom of the stairs. “I’ll call Finn,” he said, “and I’ll hold the fort here. You go get him.”

***

Brynjar had been hammering away at a joke about Dýranblað's influence on curricular standards for the past eighteen minutes, and it took Finn shaking him a couple of times and saying his name to break his concentration. His first reaction was annoyance: as a rule he wasn’t great at tuning out distractions, so when he got into the zone, he liked to stay there as long as he reasonably could. But then the outside world came flooding back in, including Bård’s and Vegard’s distress playing glissandos against his nerve endings. “...Calle is,” Finn was saying, standing over him.

“Pardon? I heard not.”

“I need to know where--”

Calle was full of bright, brittle magic that dazzled his vision, but when Brynjar tracked the magic, he was able to put together a trajectory. “The 7-11 by the Stortinget,” Brynjar said. He clutched Finn’s sleeve. “Erna Solberg.” Taking up his stick, he ran to the door. 

“Not both of you,” Jessalyn groaned. “We tape tomorrow, guys.”

“Just Finn, then.” Brynjar put his fingers to his lips and whistled for Sleipnir. “Haste!”

***

Finn was already out the door. A few seconds later, Sleipnir wheeled and disappeared onto the old roads, Finn hanging onto her back for dear life.

Jessalyn joined him in the doorway. “What is this, anyway? Sale at Insomnia?”

“It are hard to tell,” Brynjar said, “but it looking very much like treason.”

“That’s a little harsh, isn’t it?”

“Not Finn,” Brynjar said. “It are Ylvis’ friend Calle.” He shook his head dazedly. He didn’t know Calle, but it didn’t compute. He went back to Jessalyn’s home office, saw exactly what was wrong with the joke, and fixed it. Then he closed his eyes, kneading his left hand with his right, and settled down to keep an eye on everyone.

***

Calle had driven today, and now his car was missing. “7-11,” their phones said in Brynjar’s voice, as they stood in the parking lot. And that didn’t help, because there were eight 7-11s in the city, but then the phone said, “He travelleth along Maridalsveien. Evidence is that he are targeting your Prime Minister.”

“Helllllllllllllllllll,” Bård growled. They knew which one she used every day--had serenaded her there while she bought her newspaper--but it was right downtown. He turned to Vegard. “I took the tram.”

“Me too,” Vegard said, shaking his head. The tram was twenty minutes, the car ride less than fifteen when traffic was cooperating. Then his eyes lit up. “But I can’t do a full-body glamour that will fool people close up. I still shimmer. Can you make me invisible?”

Bård made a mental inventory of his garden. “I can make you anonymous,” he offered.

“Never mind. I think I know what I can do. For me. Do you have a skateboard?”

“Vegard...” Bård made a noise of mingled exasperation and delight. “Go. I’ll catch up.”

He turned and sprinted up the stairs. His solar plexus ached one way when his feet hit the floor, and another way every time he pulled in a deep breath. He barrelled back into the office--the staff looked up, satisfied themselves that everything was back to normal, and went back to their work--snatched a skateboard from the jumble of props under one table and a helmet from the safety gear, and bolted down the stairs. He hit the sidewalk, fitted the helmet over his head, and pushed off, angling the board around the corner to Åmotbrua. The paving bricks were very uncomfortable, and it was a relief to get onto the smooth asphalt trail that ran beside the Akerselva.

He’d managed to teach himself a couple of tricks in high school and his early twenties, but that wasn’t what mattered now. He needed to be fast and keep his balance. He glided down the path, through Kuba Park, calling ahead so that he didn’t run into anyone. Every time he saw a new person, he asked himself if they could be Vegard before eventually overtaking them. 

Vegard came into view on Maridalsveien, when Bård was just on the other side of the rehabilitated industrial buildings of Vulkan. And it was unmistakably Vegard: if the curls and the wordless acknowledgement from their telepathic link hadn’t confirmed it, the fact that he was hovering twenty centimetres off the ground would have. As Bård approached, he saw people filming with their phones, laughing, and giving him thumbs up. 

Fiddling with his contact lenses while skateboarding seemed like all kinds of bad. : _I gotta know, what’s the glamour?_ :

Vegard was ebullient: magic and flight were two of his favourite things, and his pride in his idea shone. : _Hoverboard._ :

: _Good one. But don’t slow down for me. I’ll catch up._ :

: _It’s not for you; I’m getting tired! I’ve never gone this long before, and twenty centimetres up is as much work as twenty metres. Plus I have to look like I’m standing on something, and my calves are killing me._ :

Bård glided level with him, and then past him. Vegard caught his sleeve, and Bård took over the forward momentum so all that Vegard had to do was stay in the air. “You’re the worst balloon ever,” Bård tossed over his shoulder, as he pulled Vegard onto Fredenborgsveien. Narrow sidewalks and rain gutters made it difficult for him to keep up his speed here, so he moved out onto the road, and then guided them onto Grubbegata, where the sidewalk was wider and much better behaved. He was well onto Akersgata before the bricks started up again, rattling his teeth. 

“Are we going to be too late?” Vegard demanded as they turned onto Karl Johans Gate, joining it just where the pedestrians only zone ended. They would have kept to the sidewalks anyway, because the bricks continued.

Bård had been wondering that himself. Now he thought it through. “He’s got a car.”

“Exactly.”

“He’ll have to park!” they said in unison. 

“Not to mention crosswalks, buses, and roundabouts,” Bård added, dodging a couple of pedestrians who laughed and waved.

They cut through Studenterlunden Park, crossed Stortingsgata, and took the walkway to Olav Vs Gate. Bård leapt off his skateboard. Vegard landed on the ground, wobbly-legged, and hit the door of the 7-11 face-first. He ricocheted into Bård, and a moment later, the electric eye activated and the door slid aside. They burst in red-faced and panting.

There was only a teenager leafing through _Se & Hør_. “Took the door a bit fast, did you?” said the cashier, her eyes dancing. 

Vegard made a small, breathless affirmative noise, and joined Bård at the back of the store. They scanned the refrigerators in consternation.

: _We can’t be too late, can we?_ :

: _If we were too late, it wouldn’t be this calm in here,_ : Bård assured him, but he had to wonder. Were they in the right spot?

The entry chime sounded again. Erna Solberg, in a matching turquoise skirt and blazer, plucked up a VG, and paused in front of the candy bars.

A moment later there was another chime. “Hi hi, Calle,” Solberg sang out, reaching down to grab a Monolit bar. “The big Kvikk Lunsj are two for eighty kroner, if you’re interested. They’ve got the one with sea salt.”

Calle advanced on her, face blank.

Bård and Vegard rushed forward. Vegard got behind Calle. Bård got between Solberg and Calle, and grabbed the big Kvikk Lunsj. “I was looking for those! Here, Calle, you’d better get some too.” He grabbed his wrist and put two chocolate bars into Calle’s wildly flexing hand. “He’s trying to quit smoking,” he explained to the Prime Minister. Calle dropped the chocolate, and Bård caught it. “It makes him very cranky.”

Vegard had wrested something from Calle’s other hand, and was holding it behind his back. He gestured with his chin. Bård tossed two hundred kroner on the counter. “Sorry, hard deadline,” he explained, and the two of them hustled Calle out of the store. 

Outside, Calle wrenched away from them and lunged south, only to pull up short as Finn stepped out of nothing onto the sidewalk in front of him, one hand raised, magic sparking at his fingertips. Calle wheeled around and sprinted through to Stortingsgata, ignoring the queues waiting for the trams. All three followed at a dead run, Vegard still clutching the weapon he’d taken, a bone-handled hunting knife he quickly wreathed in repulsion spells. With hand signals, Finn indicated that Bård should head right and Vegard left, so that Calle couldn’t turn without being caught. They were herding him towards the roundabout, to Slottsparken, where the trees and gardens would provide some cover. 

Calle broke through the trees just a few steps ahead of the brothers, and staggered back as a whinny split the air. He spun and launched himself at Bård and Vegard, who grabbed him. Bård planted a foot behind Calle’s to trip him, and Vegard cushioned his fall, but Calle put a hand down on the ground and twisted, bringing his knees up to Vegard’s stomach even as he kicked Bård’s legs out from under him. 

He plucked the knife from Vegard’s grasp and dropped to a crouch, but then his face changed and he staggered a little under a binding spell. Before he could rise, Finn’s hand seized Calle’s knife arm from behind, and used it to pull him off balance, so that he sprawled to the ground. Looking uncharacteristically fierce, Finn wrenched the weapon away, and planted a knee on Calle’s back, not heavily enough to hurt him, but enough to keep him pinned to the cedar chips. “You okay?” he asked Bård and Vegard.

“Yeah,” Vegard said breathlessly. “What’s going on?”

“I’ll know in just a minute,” Finn said through his teeth. Then he blew on the knife, poised it over Calle’s flailing left arm just below the sleeve, and made a quick short shallow cut.

Calle went suddenly limp. Both brothers cried out. “Finn, what the hell are you doing?” Bård demanded, his voice shrill.

“Getting answers,” Finn said grimly. Calle was breathing hard, but no longer struggling. Finn showed Bård and Vegard the amber fluid welling up from the scratch he’d made, and then passed it under his nose. “Well! Pine. It makes sense I guess. Soft. Light-coloured. Relatively tall. Very Norwegian. Vegard, tell Helene she is a _model_ of restraint.” Finn bent close to Not-Calle’s ear. “If I let you up, what’s going to happen?”

“I don’t know.” Not-Calle said softly. “I didn’t hurt anyone, did I?”

“No, no,” Finn singsonged, with a quick look at the brothers to confirm it. He took his knee off not-Calle’s back, and sat down crosslegged on the cedar chips. Not-Calle rolled over, and with a wary look at the brothers, sat with his back against a birch. Finn patted his arm. “No. Sh-sh. It’s going to be okay now. We’re friends. We’re here to help.”

“He just tried to assassinate the prime minister,” Bård protested.

“Oh gods,” Not-Calle moaned.

“It’s not his fault,” Finn said, with an edge to his voice. He reached back and swiped at the already-shrinking cut on Not-Calle’s arm again, and this time he put his finger in his mouth, eliciting cries of disgust from Bård and Vegard. He rolled the sap around in his mouth thoughtfully. “Whoa… _old._ Not, like, old old, but like, old-fashioned. Oh gods, guys.” He put a hand on not-Calle’s shoulder. “There is a _lot_ of compulsion in this. Like, more than eighty percent.” He looked over at Not-Calle. “Is it okay that I’m touching you like this?”

“What? I… I guess.” Finn started to move away, and Not-Calle said, “Yes! Yes it’s okay.”

“Do you have anything you’d like to be called?” Finn asked.

“Calle.”

“We can’t call you Calle,” Vegard said.

Not-Calle’s face crumpled. “I don’t know, I don’t _know_.”

“Okay, okay,” Finn soothed. “How about… Henning?”

“If we name him after Calle’s evil brother, then doesn’t reflective constitution turn him into Calle’s evil brother?” Vegard demanded.

“There’s no reflective constitution in this mix,” Finn explained. “Do you like Henning okay?” he asked the changeling.

“Henning is fine,” said Henning. “That’s who I am now?”

“It’s your name now,” Finn told him. “Are you hungry?”

Henning frowned, and thought it over. “I think so.”

“Okay.” Finn’s voice was still gentle. He put an arm around Henning and an arm around Bård. “I propose that we all go for lunch to talk things over. Does that sound okay?”

“Yeah,” Bård said, in the same gentle, patient, friendly tone, turning it into a mockery. “That sounds really nice, Finn. Let’s all go to lunch.”

“If, if…” Henning took a deep, shuddering breath. “I could hurt somebody.”

“Okay,” Finn said. “We can stop that from happening, can’t we, guys?” 

“I hope so,” Vegard said.

The brothers got to their feet, and Finn helped Henning stand up. “I’ve got to explain some things to Bård and Vegard,” he said, as they started to walk. “They’re probably things you know already, but I don’t want you to feel like we’re talking about you like you’re not here. If I say something wrong, I hope that you feel free to correct me.”

“Okay,” said Henning, in a small voice.

“And if any of us do something that hurts you or makes you uncomfortable, unless it's because you're threatening someone, it’s okay to ask us to stop.”

“Okay.”

“We’re being awfully nice to the man who just pulled a knife on the Prime Minister,” Vegard observed.

Henning squeezed his eyes shut, and seemed to fold in on himself a little.

Finn put a comforting hand on Henning’s shoulder. “Four percent compulsion felt like… like a little nagging voice inside my head. ‘Did you do what they wanted? How about now? Now?’ When I couldn’t do what I’d been told, it made me very nervous. I slept badly.”

“What does eighty percent do?” Bård asked. 

“This,” Henning said miserably, gesturing at himself. He opened his mouth to say something else, and then closed it again.

“Someone created our friend Henning here to be a puppet, basically,” Finn said. “He’s got a little bit of free will. Enough that he could probably try to resist a direct order just enough to make it painful, am I right?”

Henning nodded.

“I’m not going to blame him for actions he can’t control, and I’m not going to run roughshod over the little bit of freedom that he has.” He stopped in front of Dagligstuen. “Is this okay with everyone?”

Bård and Vegard nodded. A second later, so did Henning.

They waited in silence to be seated. The server ushered them into a quiet corner, and brought them big glasses of water. “So, who’s controlling you?” Vegard asked. 

Henning had been chugging his water, but he stopped abruptly and put the glass down. “It goes back and forth,” he said, and stopped. He looked, for a second, like he was trying to say something else, but nothing was coming out. 

Finn shot a tense look at the brothers, as if to say, _Mark this_. He squeezed Henning’s shoulder.

“Smøla Vindpark is the largest wind farm in Norway and the largest on-shore wind far in Europe. It consists of sixty-eight turbines, and covers eighteen acres in Møre og Romsdal on the Isle of Smøla, near the village of Dyrnes. It can generate an average of four hundred and fifty gigawatts a year,” Henning said, and then fell silent, eyes desperate.

“One of the people controlling him is his handler,” Finn said. “Whoever engineered this, whoever programmed him, whoever wanted Erna Solberg… out of the way.”

“That was very carefully put,” Vegard observed. 

“Yes it was. But I’m guessing you wouldn’t have known anything was wrong, would you?”

“Well, until he attacked me,” Bård said, rubbing his solar plexus.

“Sorry,” Henning said quietly.

“He was a very convincing Calle, _without _the help of reflective constitution. Right up until the moment someone suggested he might not be Calle, at which point an emergency routine kicked in. And that means…” Finn trailed off, looking at them expectantly.__

__“What? What does it mean?” Bård demanded._ _

__“That the other person controlling him is Calle,” Vegard said softly. “I don’t understand, Finn.”_ _

__Finn kept his hand on Henning’s shoulder. “It means that whoever made Henning, and programmed him to hurt your prime minister, has Calle. He’s almost certainly _okay_ , but he’s going to need rescuing.”_ _

__Bård frowned. “Should we be saying this in front of, uh…” He waved a thumb at Henning._ _

__“I’m strictly one-way,” Henning assured him._ _

__“No offense, but why should we believe you?”_ _

__Finn waved his hand in the air over Henning’s head. “No feedback mechanism.”_ _

__“Besides,” Henning said, “lying is complicated. I mean… lying is easy, but getting people to believe you is hard. I’ve learned a little, tagging along with your friend’s mind, but I was only programmed to do one thing.” He glanced from brother to brother, and then back down. “Thank you for stopping me.”_ _

__They ordered food, and Cokes for Vegard and Bård, cold-brewed coffee for Finn, and fresh-squeezed mixed juice for Henning._ _

__“So what can you tell us about who programmed you?” Vegard pressed._ _

__“Three kilometres from the village of Straum, on the island of Hitra, in the municipality of Hitra, is Hitra Vindpark,” Henning told him. “Until the opening of the second phase of Smøla Vindpark in 2005, it was the largest in Norway. It has twenty-four turbines capable of producing one hundred and fifty gigawatts a year. It cost four hundred and fifty million kroner to build.”_ _

__Vegard frowned. “Those are both owned by the same company. But what would Statkraft want with a clone of Calle?”_ _

__Finn shook his head. “I’ve seen this before. It’s not _about_ wind farms. Ask him something he’s not supposed to answer, and he replies with information so boring that you just stop caring.”_ _

__“Can you tell us anything about how to find Calle?”_ _

__Henning shook his head. “If I knew, I don’t think I could tell anyway, but I don’t know.”_ _

__Bård pulled out his phone, and texted Kaja.__

> __Need to borrow Larsen for a few days  
>  We’ll get him back to you soon I promise_ _

__The reply was immediate._ _

> _Now_ you tell me. 

Bård cocked his head at Henning. “I was about to say, well you can’t go home tonight. But it sounds like…”  


__“I… he… we get home very late these days,” Henning said. “Not harming or alerting Kaja or his children is one of the baseline protocols.”_ _

__“Maybe you should text her yourself,” Vegard suggested. “It would be weird if she heard from Bård and not at least the person she thinks is Calle.”_ _

__Henning looked dubious, but he pulled out Calle’s phone, and scrolled through the previous texts. “I can try to mimic his style…”_ _

__“We need everyone on this,” Bård murmured to Finn. “I know your taping is tomorrow, but could you and Brynjar meet us Wednesday?”_ _

__“Tomorrow night, and I think we’re far enough ahead that we could meet you for lunch. If I’m right, there’s someone I should talk…” Finn trailed off, watching Henning. He frowned, and the frown deepened and deepened._ _

____

***

Calle watched to the end of the cut scene, but then he paused the game and put the controller down. It clung oddly to his fingers, and it almost seemed not worth the trouble. He wanted to shout for his friend, but he couldn’t remember the friend’s name, and laughed to himself. You knew you’d been playing for too long when... So he settled for calling, “I’m just gonna get going, okay?”

The friend was there in an eyeblink, and protested that he hadn’t been there long at all, and they hadn’t seen each other in years, and it would be years again before the next time. And they’d ordered food, didn’t he remember? 

Calle could definitely stand to eat, now that he thought of it. He glanced at the clock on the wall, and it really wasn’t that late at all. And it had been a very, very long time since he’d seen dear old... whoever that was. He sat back down, and picked up the game controller. It was like nothing he’d ever seen before, and he meant to ask what system this was, but the friend had ducked into the other room again. He shrugged, and unpaused it, and kept playing.

***

Calle sent his text, and raised his head. And it _was_ Calle. Vegard had never been so happy to see that sheepish grin in his entire life. “Just texting Kaja. Letting her know you need me.”

“We really appreciate it,” Bård said, sounding a little strangled.

“So, what will I be doing?” Calle’s tone was hearty and his smile bright, but there was puzzlement in his eyes. 

“We, uh,” Vegard began, and looked at Bård and Finn helplessly.

“Want,” Bård put in.

“ _Need_ ,” corrected Finn.

“You, to, uh…”

“Help.”

“With?” Finn prompted.

“Rehearsals.”

“For, uh…”

“This thing we have in, um…”

“August.” 

“Yeah! ‘Cause, uh, Finn…”

“Plays the, uh…”

“Lyngepause.”

“Lyngepause?” Calle echoed.

“Yeah!”

“But…”

“I’ve decided that I just can’t,” Finn finished smoothly. “I thought I could manage with my other commitments, but I’ve got an infant at home, and…”

“Say no more,” Calle said gallantly. “I have no idea what a lyngepause is, but I’ll give it a shot.”

“That’s why we’re getting you the hotel room,” Vegard said. “So you can practice without disturbing anyone. Not here though,” he added quickly, seeing the others’ eyes widen. It would be a bad idea to put him so far away from them, and so close to the Prime Minister. Finn tapped him on the shoulder, and passed him his phone, showing him a listing. “Well, a guest house. They’ve got a very good practice room.”

***

Finn left right after eating, pleading a need to get back to work. It wasn’t entirely false, but with Calle back in control he couldn’t speak freely, and someone needed to set up Calle’s lodgings. There was nothing to do, then, but take Calle back to the office. He seemed to remember nothing at all, so the brothers gave him the same cover story they’d given everyone else: an elbow to the head in the wrong place, and he was fine now but in his daze he’d screwed up the choreography of the fight. They embellished it, then, so that when they found him, they decided they might as well get lunch. Calle agreed that yes, yes, that was exactly how it had happened, with faintly bewildered enthusiasm. The rest of the day passed without incident.

Wulverhuset was in Sinsen, on the edge of Lørenparken. It wasn’t really a guest house, but it did make its rooms available to those outside of the order in exchange for a modest donation, and they had downstairs containment facilities for up to five werewolves at a time. Bård and Vegard rode with Calle in his car, ostensibly to navigate and pay with the company card and help him carry in his things, which included the new lyngepause Vegard had gotten Bård for Christmas.

A robed wolf greeted them at the door. His Norwegian was heavily accented. “Calle. Ylvis. You do honour to us with your presence. Come in.”

The interior of the place was paneled in dark wood, unornamented but polished to a shine that made it seem opulent. The wolf showed them to a room on the second floor. It was Spartan, but comfortable. “Reminds me of the army,” Calle said. 

Bård had the company card, and he followed the wolf downstairs to sort out payment. The moment the door closed, Calle turned to Vegard and said, softly, “Was that guy a monk? Did you put me in a monastery?”

Vegard shifted uncomfortably. “Er. They’re maybe a little religious. You know how if you go to a Sikh temple, they feed you? These guys give you a place to stay where you can make as much noise as you need to.”

“Okay,” Calle said dubiously. “It’s fine with me, but I’m a little surprised that you’d go for this sort of thing.”

Vegard fluttered his hands. “No, no, no. It’s not a, a god thing. It’s a… sort of a service thing. Like we do for Unicef, but with less public humiliation and slightly better haircuts.” He cocked his head. “Why, what did that guy look like to you?”

Calle shrugged. “I dunno. White. Red hair. Beard. I could picture him in a muesli ad, if it wasn’t for the speech impediment. Maybe paper towel of some sort. Why?”

“I saw him as more grey-haired. With a long nose. Never mind. Let me show you how to play a lyngepause.”

***

“Sooooo,” Bård said to the wolf as they descended the stairs, “can you tell me a little bit about what you do here? Even Vegard seems to know a little, but I don’t.”

The wolf smiled. It looked bad, but his voice was gentle. “Finn of course we know from his defense of our order in the Rødklo affair. Brother Eoghan and Sister Ailsa met your brother while he was in prison. We are an order dedicated to taming a strength that the world has told us is good for only brutality, and turning it to the service of our fellow creatures. Out of instinct, practice. Out of savagery, wisdom. Out of vice, forbearance.” He ran the company card through the card reader. “Thank you for your donation. Sign here? There is no more turning at the full moon for us, no shuttling back and forth between our natures. We are what we are. But we remember the struggle well, and if any come to us fighting urges they cannot control, we will provide for them. Your friend is in good hands.” 

“No,” Bård replied grimly as he finished signing the form. He gestured back at the second floor with his chin. “ _He’s_ in good hands, and we’re very grateful to you for it. But he’s counterfeit. My real friend, real Calle, is not in very good hands at all.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Suggested musical pairing (for the chase): Joe Satriani's "Summer Song" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7NJ_nzOckOQ


	7. The Laying of Plans

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Summer fun in Oslo #5: Picnics / “Is anyone going to care?” / Lost souls / An exchange of texts / No more words

Bård and Vegard spent the morning filming, took a long lunch, and met Finn and Brynjar in Beierbakken. Finn carried a folded shimmering grey cloth, but the cousins were otherwise empty-handed. “Weren’t you bringing the picnic?” Vegard asked, shielding his eyes from the noontime sun. 

“We could had haved it all ready, but we wanted to showing you this,” Brynjar said, eyes dancing. With a grin, Finn let the cloth fall to the ground, and began to unfold it. As he did so, he revealed plates and covered dishes, pickles and smoked salmon and trays of fruits and vegetables and freshly sliced bread and two pitchers of cold tea and a dish of sugarcubes.

“Super!” Bård breathed. 

“One preparates each dish and folds the cloth over. This are its second use, and I are well pleased.”

They all sat, and Finn handed around plates and napkins, while Brynjar passed the different dishes.

“How is he?” Finn asked, chasing a devilled egg across his plate. 

No one had to ask who he meant. “He’s Calle,” Bård said between bites of salmon, “but he’s surprisingly agreeable. Believes whatever we tell him.”

“I tested it in the office this afternoon,” Vegard told them. “I put him in front of the piano and asked him if he could play a song we’d played when we were in our band in high school, and he played it. I asked him if he could play one of the songs he’d had at his wedding, and he played the one he used for their first dance, and had tears in his eyes the whole time. Then I told him it was good, but could he do it double time? And he tried, and said he would work on it. He never asked why. It’s like he’s the smart kid who didn’t do his homework last night, but he’s still trying really hard to keep up.”

“That makes sense to me,” Finn said thoughtfully. “Even when you’re powering a changeling with the original, there’s bound to be gaps and slippage, so you’d make them more agreeable and hence less likely to get themselves in trouble. And if trouble does happen, well, you saw. The programming kicks in.”

A gossamer thread drifted down, stuck to an apple slice, and drew the slice up into the branches of the beech tree they were sitting under. Vegard looked up, and saw Sleipnir’s eight eyes blinking back at him. She lay on one of the branches like an eight-legged panther horse, tail switching back and forth lazily. She winked at him with four of her eyes, and swung the apple slice into her mouth.

“Were you able to get any research done?” Vegard asked.

“I has done some,” Brynjar said

Finn rolled his eyes, and let out a frustrated sigh. “Between the baby and Ariadne, Melly and I are scrambling to meet her regular deadlines. I didn’t even want to ask her, but she did confirm what I found, which is that there’s just not much there. Controlling a changeling with the original is, like, fantastically illegal. It’s been classified as a war crime for literally more than a thousand years.”

“I don’t want to go to the dálki,” Bård said immediately. 

“I think we probably should,” Vegard said. “If it’s that bad, we wouldn’t want to be caught hiding it.”

Brynjar, who had started tossing sugar cubes up into the tree, shook his head. “It also taking massive resources. This are someone with powerful magics at their command, and likely high status. Yes, the dálki wouldst investigate, most likely to the bestness of their abilities. They might layify charges. Henning willst then be impounded, information extractified from in whatever way is seen fit, and then they will decommission him. But Calle will had been already moved, likely to never seeing the light of day again.”

Vegard found that he was breathing hard, that his muscles were locked tight. He scooched back against the smooth grey bark and breathed. “We can’t, we can’t, we can’t,” he said. 

“We won’t,” Finn assured him. 

“Brynjar,” Bård said, “you have to be able to see something.”

“I sees Calle,” Brynjar said with a shrug. “Because I knowing what to look for, I see fuzziness in him, an imperfect fit, but normally he wouldst fool even me. When his cover were blown, when Henning taked over early, my vision were dazzled by magic, as it were with the kidnapping attempt. I can seeing nothing in or through or beyond it, but I would know it again.”

They were silent for a long time. And then Vegard said, “He got activated early, but he still knew exactly where to find Erna Solberg. That means whoever it is knows her routine, or has some kind of trace on her, and both of those things take planning. Why would a magical person want to hurt _our_ Prime Minister?”

Bård added, “Why would a magical person want _Calle Hellevang-Larsen_ to hurt our Prime Minister?”

“Because they have another one waiting in the wings,” Finn murmured, looking as if something had just started making sense and he didn’t like it a bit. “But then why talk show hosts? Is it a Bergen thing?”

“Finn,” Brynjar said.

Finn sighed, and turned to face Vegard and Bård. “I have to talk to some people this afternoon. Right now I can’t tell you anything about them. And I don’t know if they’ll be able to help us, even if they want to.”

Brynjar snorted. “Changelings of Einar Tørnquist and Erna Solberg taking part in his support group.”

Finn cuffed his brother’s arm. “Brynjar!”

“What? You has betrayed no confidences. And I has taken no oath.”

Finn grimaced, but he spread his hands, as if to say to the brothers, Well?

“Zweinar,” Bård said, snapping his fingers. “You can’t tell us what they’ve talked about, can you?” 

“Even if I could, I don’t think there’s any useful information there.”

“Unless thou art big on football or law,” Brynjar said, earning himself a glare from Finn.

“But they can’t be the same,” Bård said, “not if real Erna Solberg is still walking around. And Einar seemed pretty real when we did his show.”

Finn frowned. Brynjar said, “He are trying to find a clever way of telling you Zweinar and Ida were each constructed with different methods, and predate him in the group, suggestifying multiple generations of the same plan.”

“Thanks,” Finn said through his teeth.

“I can confirming that they are maked with the same magic, but not in the same configuring. And… ah. Someone have just now detected my probing and I are again dazzled by brightness.” Brynjar’s brow furrowed. “I mislike this.”

“Assassination plots rub me the wrong way too,” Bård said.

Brynjar fixed the grey eye on him. “I meaned not your prime minister, who so far have incurred only the ordinary harm that comes of reading _VG_. Imaginate being a mild creature of good will, living on water and light, suddenly slayed, thy undead self reinfused with life and enthralled to do another’s bidding.” 

“That’s what happened to you and Finn,” Vegard said softly. 

“It were. And now imaginate people just like us, even less free, hijacked, forcified to hurt and kill with every part screaming no. That is what is happening. It seems it have been happening for years. It are an atrocity, and I wouldst see it stopped.”

“I can invite them to talk to us,” Finn said. “I’ll do it tonight.”

Brynjar nodded. “Should they be willing and able to escape, I offers them asylum in Asgard.”

“You’re right, it’s all rotten,” Finn sighed. “I should have done something earlier, rules or no rules.”

Bård gave his forearm a squeeze. “You’re right. To hell with oaths. Charge into situations you know nothing about. Trample their autonomy. Save everyone. It always works out so well.” 

Finn threw a strawberry at him. Bård sat for a moment, his smile growing brighter and brighter, and then without warning he pinned Finn to the blanket, and rubbed a handful of potato salad into his curls.

Vegard met Brynjar’s eyes over the writhing, shrieking, increasingly mayonnaise-covered tangle. “So, Finn’s job is to talk to his friends tonight. And tape a show with you. What should Bård and I do?”

Brynjar slowly tossed olive pits into the fray. “Replacing the buzzer with a bicycle bell. Plant ajuga in that shaded corner. Examinate your news for clues: both previous attempts on humans in power, and possible reasonings why a mage would want Ms. Solberg gone. Choose the fifth pattern; it are comparable to the others in longevity, but discontinued, and so far cheaper. Eat dinner with Calle tonight, but order not the spring rolls. Sleep well, for I feels a weight on the days to come. Myself, I meaning to make inquiries with my fellow gods.”

Vegard aimed a careful kick into the wrestling match. “Bård? Come on, these guys have TV to make.”

Bård stopped and let Finn up. “And I need a shower, thanks to all this dark antimatter here.”

Finn sat up, shedding gobbets of potato. He bent over one of the dishes, made a few quick cuts, and shuffled slices of strawberry shortcake onto plates. “Not before dessert.”

There was a snort and a scuttling, and Sleipnir joined them, snarfling up the cake Finn offered her, and then methodically licking his hair. The ravens joined her, perching on Finn’s shoulders and nibbling delicately.

“Guys,” Finn laughed, “there was a whole spread you could have joined in. …Aww…” He closed his eyes, leaned back against the tree, and let himself be preened, a foolish grin on his face.

He was looking a lot neater when Brynjar urged everyone to their feet, and folded up the wondrous cloth. Bård had lettuce in his hair and mayonnaise on his elbow, and he was probably going to have to change his shirt when he got back to the office. “No one’s licking me,” he observed, and Sleipnir snorted and put her tongue out at him.

***

Finn had wanted to be early to the support group meeting, but he hadn’t counted on having to go home to shower and change. He and Brynjar had rehearsed right up until the last possible minute, and then Sleipnir herself had taken Finn to the bookstore with two minutes to spare. He nodded at the proprietor and went right through to the back, where everyone else already sat.

Zweinar gave Finn a small smile. “Meet me after?” Finn whispered. Zweinar might have nodded; it was very hard to tell. And then he took his seat, and the meeting started.

Mr. Sniffles had had a terrible day. His maker’s children had found a box of their father’s old things in the house some weeks ago, and over the weekend they had finally gone through them and thrown them away. “I should be grateful to have been able to smell him again,” Sniffles said sorrowfully, “but now it’s gone, and they wouldn’t let me keep anything. They said, What does a dog need with a pair of socks? As if I don’t miss him. As if I don’t matter. And then of course, I got in trouble for howling.”

Ida didn’t meet anyone’s eyes. “I was expecting something bad to happen,” she said. “It hasn’t. Yet.”

“Ida,” said Finn, “are you okay?”

“I need help,” she said, voice choked with tears, and told them about Norway's being the EU's main supplier of aluminum and the primary exporter of natural gas in western Europe. 

When it was Zweinar’s turn, he screwed up his face and said, “Work…” His face went slack all of a sudden, and he launched into enthusiastic praise of Emma Cross' superior footwork.

On his brief trip home for a shower, Finn had gotten a fresh lecture from Ariadne about wasting food and time, and being a bad example to a daughter who was going to need all the help she could get in life. But what he took his turn to say was, “My cousins have uncovered… someone is doing terrible things to changelings. We’re going to try to stop it.”

“Do you feel comfortable sharing more about it?” Anna asked.

“A control method that I know is very illegal. And someone is trying to make them kill.”

Zweinar quietly closed his eyes. Ida glanced up, her expression unreadable.

“How disturbing,” Mr. Sniffles murmured. He got up and trotted over to Finn’s side, and Finn gave him head scratches.

“It makes all of us heartsick, but I’m glad we found out about it,” Finn said. “It’s been going on for awhile, under the radar. We’re going to make it stop.”

“Talk to me after we break,” Anna said. “I can make you aware of some resources.”

When the meeting ended, Finn was anxious to meet Zweinar, but he couldn’t turn down the help. Anna’s resources turned out to be a list of safe houses, a legal defense fund, the name of a clinic, a pro-changeling-rights lobby group, and the name Toril Standhaftig. “I know you don’t want to involve the dálki,” she said, “and I don’t blame you, but I’ve had dealings with her. If you need her.” She lifted her chin a little. “And if you need me… you know where to find me.”

“Thank you, Anna.” He folded the pages she’d given him, and put them in his pocket. “If I…”

“Wait, Finn, and think about whether the next thing you say is something that I would, as facilitator, be oathbound to tell the authorities. I’m not saying don’t tell me, but think carefully about whether that’s what you want to do right now.”

He nodded. “All right. Thank you. Good night, Anna.”

“Good luck, Finn. Gods go with you.”

“Believe me, he never lets me forget it.”

Zweinar was waiting outside the bookstore. Ida stood with him. “You found… what I alluded to?” Zweinar asked. 

“I did. Thank you, Zweinar. You’re a hero.”

Zweinar shook his head. “I just don’t want anyone to get hurt.”

“We’ve been lucky so far,” Ida said, arms wrapped around herself despite the warmth of the evening. “It’s not going to last forever.”

“Is it okay if I hug you?” Finn asked.

“Please,” she said. He gathered her into his arms, and felt her sobbing against him. “I’m so tired of being strong. Is anyone going to care, Finn?”

“We do,” he whispered. “I'll fight for you. With everything I have.” Finn looked from one to the other. “Calle’s friends want to help. Not just him, but you too. When can all get together?”

Ida and Zweinar looked at each other for a long time. “I think tomorrow,” Ida said finally. “Eight, shall we say?”

“Think of a nice place to meet,” Zweinar said, and they shared another one of those long looks.

“W.B. Samson is nice,” Finn suggested.

“But expensive,” Ida said with a shudder. 

“Yes,” said Zweinar, “it should be free.”

Finn got the idea. “Frognerparken?” 

“That’s more like it, but not quite what we had in mind,” Ida said. 

“Slottsplassen?”

“No,” said Zweinar, “that won’t do at all.”

“Tøyenparken?”

“Now that’s more in the neighbourhood.”

“The Botanical Gardens?”

Zweinar clapped his hands together once. “Why, what a wonderful suggestion you’ve made, Finn Weber! We will be delighted to meet you there at eight.”

Ida studied him, frowning. “Do be cautious,” she said. “Anyone could be there. Zweinar and I will be carrying protection of course.”

Finn nodded. “I look forward to it.”

“I don’t,” Ida said bleakly, before turning away.

Finn got to the corner and whistled soft and low for Sleipnir, to take him back to his show.

***

Ida watched the eight-legged horse bear Finn away. She turned to Zweinar. “There's no going back now. What did we just get him into?”

“You know and I know,” Zweinar said grimly, “but I’d feel a lot better if we could have told him.”

“This happened because I ran,” Ida sighed. “If I’d just taken the decommissioning, she wouldn’t have me to use in this new scheme.”

“Don’t be like that,” Zweinar said. “You didn’t choose any of this, and neither did I.” He motioned with his head in the direction Finn had gone. “He did.”

“He’s just a baby.”

Zweinar shrugged. “But he’s a well connected baby with a platform, and he’s based on a human famous for succeeding at whatever he turns his hand to.”

“And he actually listens. Which is more than I can say for most people. I’ve just got a terrible feeling, Zweinar. I thought getting help would make it go away, but I only feel like I’ve dragged him down with us.” She set her mouth, wiped her eyes, and squared her shoulders. “But it’s not just us, is it? It isn’t selfish if we’re trying to save others too, is it?”

Zweinar gathered his friend and reluctant colleague into his arms, to seek comfort as much as to give it. As much as in the group they reassured each other that they were people, that they had rights, that they mattered, here was Ida, unable to convince herself that her own life was worth fighting for. He would have thought the same for himself, but seeing it in someone else made him ache for her.

***

The text came at eleven. 

> Botanical Gardens tomorrow 8  
>  lets meet early  
>  bring your A game

Bård replied,

> Why am I bringing my A game to the botanical gardens? 

The reply was quick.

> NOT random location  
>  & I think they were trying to warn me about themselves too  
>  If we try anything they might not have a choice about stopping us

The next reply was Vegard’s.

> ok can do

> V u sure? 

> yeah im fine  
>  whats the point of learning all those new things if I dont try them  
>  how was the show? 

> Guriel Abatrael started yelling. Brynjar smiled & started listing file names on his computer & he went the colour of porridge  
>  it was AWESOME

***

The meeting arranged, Finn clicked off his phone, started the chair rocking again, and took up the words of the lullaby he’d been humming to Riri in her cradle. Vegard wouldn’t have recognized it; Helene would, although it lost something without Brynjar to sing that high sweet descant. His knife bit into the stick of ash, taken from a living tree with its blessing in exchange for one of his own. A shape sat lightly but solidly in his mind, somewhere below the surface, among thoughts that tugged him in frightening directions if he ever dared to indulge them. But this, being here, felt perfectly natural, comfortable, blissful even, and he wasn’t so much shaping the wood as uncovering what had been there all along, letting his fingers and his knife ease it into the world. There was a joystick and a cat and a monster, and a dark wood, and a winding road leading through it to a tangle of colourful flags. He didn’t ask questions; he didn’t want to be someone who knew the answers.

Something told him he was done for the day. He set the knife and the stick down, then swept up the shavings with the broom and pan he kept here just for this, and emptied them into the trash, letting the lullaby fade into silence. He cleaned off his hands with a baby wipe, and then peeked down at his daughter, sleeping peacefully. She was so perfect. He kissed two fingertips, and laid them very gently on her cheek. Stirring a little, she smacked rosebud lips. “Good night, dear heart,” he whispered. He wrapped her in threads of light, above and beyond what was already there, so that he would know if she woke or if she needed for anything.

He never meant to eavesdrop, and Brynjar had gotten a lot better about what he broadcasted, but the headspace he’d just emerged from had been charged in ways that told him exactly what his brother was up to. Finn crept through the silent house, dreading the sound of Ariadne’s door opening. He had his hand on his bedroom doorknob when he heard footsteps, and the latch.

He opened his own door, paying no mind now to the noise he made, and slipped in, and closed the door as quickly as he could without outright slamming it. “Finn?” Melantha said sleepily.

He skinned off his clothes, threw them on the chair, and dove under the covers next to Melantha. “Melly my treasure,” he murmured, planting a kiss at the nape of her neck, “I’m--” 

In a bit of a mood, he was about to say, followed by a delicate inquiry as to whether she was _very_ tired. But she turned in his arms and stopped the question with a kiss that answered him anyway. There was much more communication after that, but there were no more words.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Suggested musical pairing: Rush’s “Different Strings” - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpOlIRc3POk


	8. Everything is Terrible

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stuck / Calle quits the game / All for nothing / Lunch at Hagefestning / Out of range / Vegard breaks the news / From out of Erebus / The siren song

Wednesday dawned overcast. Vegard surveyed the people on the steps of Tøyen Hovedgård, and decided that the hipster with the pink hair and the knit cap was Finn. She looked up and met his gaze with a smile as he approached. “Steal my hat and I’ll hammer you into the ground like a tent peg,” she said.

“Vegard,” said an elderly white professor-type in a tweed suit, from the top of the stairs. Vegard whistled the soundkey, and the professor became Finn, in jeans and an uncharacteristically drab grey sweater. There were wood shavings all around his feet. He was unshaven, and looked like he hadn’t slept in days.

“Jesus, Finn. Rough night? Is Riri all right?”

“She’s fine,” Finn said raggedly. He sat down on the steps. Vegard sat next to him. “I was up with her, no biggie, and I dozed off in the rocking chair, also no biggie. But I… I had a nightmare and screamed myself awake, which made _her_ scream, and then Ariadne came bursting in and launched into a forty-minute tirade about what a pig I am for waking my daughter. Which woke Melly eventually, and gods, she was exhausted to begin with. I wasn’t going to get more sleep, and I didn’t want, I didn’t want to _be_ there anymore. So I’ve been out here since 05.30.” He flashed a smile, and held up a walking stick. “Finished Brynjar's stick, though. ”

Vegard ran an obligatory hand over the carving, and patted Finn’s arm. “Ariadne’s been staying with you for an awfully long time. Doesn’t she have her own house?” He thought for a moment. “Is it made of candy?”

“She’s here ostensibly to help with the baby,” Finn said, “and she has been a big help, really, but one of the last things I heard her say before I slunk out was, ‘I’m not going anywhere until you come to your senses.’ She’s not planning to go home until she can talk Melly out of the engagement.”

Vegard’s mouth had fallen open. “She can’t do that!”

“No, but she can make us miserable while she’s trying.” Finn sagged against Vegard’s shoulder. “How do you and Helene manage her parents?”

“I eat double helpings of everything,” Vegard said glumly. Somehow he didn’t think that was going to help, so he changed the subject. “What was your nightmare about?”

“I don’t know,” Finn confessed. He leaned a little more heavily on Vegard, his eyes drifting closed. “I was… far from home. I wanted to go home.”

“No no no,” Vegard said, patting Finn’s head. “It’s okay.”

“I guess it is, isn’t it? S’funny,” he murmured. “It’s nice to be this upset and not be afraid. I’m sad and angry and exhausted, but… it’s like part of me deep down knows that everything is going to be all right. It makes a difference. Is that weird?”

“I don’t know,” Vegard said truthfully. “I don’t think so.”

Brynjar climbed the stairs to join them, balancing a Kaffebrenneriet coffee tray in one hand. “Greetings, brother and cousin. You looks forlorn.” He handed each of them a cup, took one for himself, and settled carefully down onto the step. “I seed you waiting, Finn, but I… were in a situation from which it were difficult to extricate myself. I--” 

“That was precisely the right amount of detail,” Finn said rapidly. 

“--had promised my lover a breakfast soufflé,” Brynjar finished. “Oh!” he murmured, taking the walking stick that Finn handed him. “Thou hast outdone thyself, brother Finn.”

Bård mounted the stairs and sat down on Vegard’s other side. “I gave the Wulvers a heads-up. Fake Calle has the basement to himself, and is practicing his lyngepause solo. I promised we’d come and see him tonight, but we don’t have to worry about him today.” 

Finn looked uncomfortable. “I… I made inquiries about that tiara Vinael’s men tried to hit you guys with in the tunnels. The Stone of Sælu?”

The brothers grimaced in stereo. “It’s an _effective_ idea…” Vegard said dubiously.

“But I’d hate to do it to him,” Bård finished.

“It doesn’t matter,” Finn told them. “It was on loan already.”

“And I’ve been looking at the news,” Bård said, “trying to figure out why anyone would want Solberg gone. The best thing I’ve come up with is, her government is proposing a niqab ban. Could it be the djinn are upset?”

Finn shook his head. “Too new and too human. Our mage has been doing this for at least a few years.”

“This are not djinni magic,” Brynjar added. 

“But it has to be something happening this summer,” Vegard said. “The election is September 11, so it’s urgent enough that whoever it is can’t wait until then.”

“Or,” Finn said, “they want to take advantage of their Erna Solberg lookalike while they still have her. But listen, we have to be a little bit careful about assuming they’re going after Solberg for human reasons.” 

“Maybe Erna hasn’t been leaving out the saucer of milk,” Bård snorted.

“You jokes, but it are not impossible,” Brynjar said. “I has meeted ancient creatures with very funny ideas about humans. One insistified that my kitchen utensils were torture devices, and as I tried to say no, no, these are for food, they now thinks me a cannibal. To such a type, a token gesture of respect, discontinuated, may be thought a mortal insult.”

“We’ll find out soon enough,” Vegard said sensibly.

“Watch each other,” Finn said. “And don’t let anyone put anything on your forehead. They tried to use something on me… something bright and spiky. It tried to cancel my will. Also illegal.” 

“Whoa-whoa-whoa,” Bård said. “I don't like the sound of that. What is it? How do we fight it?”

“It was glyph-based, so like I said, keep people away from your forehead. If you get hit with it… it's very bright. Very very bright. If you’ve got a safe part of your mind, hide there. That’s what I did. I don’t know what I would have done if he’d ordered me to do something. If I would have done it… if I even would have known I was doing it.”

Vegard made a face. “This feels awfully serious, all of a sudden.”

“If you need to sit this one out, I think all of us understand completely.”

“What if I feel like finding whoever’s got Calle and pouring my frustrations into, into…”

“That we understands completefully too,” Brynjar assured him. “We has made some inquiries…”

“The guys they arrested at the studio were, um, Thomas Trussel and Jaceael Aundael Rhadiel,” Finn said. “Small-time conmen who looked like they had built honest lives for themselves after Innilokun Ríki. They fooled everyone for about ten years. Their spouses are devastated.”

“Do we know who they were working for?” Bård pressed.

“Their memories of the past six months has been wiped,” Brynjar said. “Excised.”

“Christ,” Bård shuddered.

Finn raised an eyebrow. “You’re an odd one to be squeamish about that.”

Brynjar shook his head. “Not at all. Bård’s comfort with his missing memories are predicated on the certainty that he did nothing he would not otherwise do. I has visited Thomas Trussel, and touched the raw edges of his memory. I are satisfied that he have been victimized. As well as his young son.”

“If someone took me over, used that will-cancelling magic on me and made me do something criminal,” Vegard said with a shiver, “that would be the story people would tell about me, wouldn’t it? That no matter if I was justified before, or framed, or whatever, I was a criminal all along and just fooling everyone who thought I wasn’t.”

“When we learn what comes of this meeting, this are a thing to consider in our next steps. But it helps us not now.”

Ida and Zweinar showed up at eight sharp. They were hovering near the edge of a dense clump of trees, huddled together, body language uncertain. 

“Remember,” Finn said, “they’re trying to help, and they know we’re trying to help, but they might not be fully in control of their actions.”

Brynjar frowned and squinted. “The wards on them is still… very bright.”

The four men approached the changelings, body language open, hands visible. “We’re all here,” said Finn, with forced cheer. “You must recognize Bård and Vegard, and here’s my brother, Brynjar.”

A shadow crossed Zweinar’s face, and he made a point of tucking his hands under his armpits. He made Finn look serene and well rested. “This was a mistake.”

“Come with us,” Ida said stonily. She turned, and walked. “Hurry.”

Bård, Vegard, Finn, and Brynjar shared a look, and followed. 

Ida and Zweinar pushed forward through trees and across expanses of grass, walking as if they were facing a stiff wind. Partway across a lawn, they both staggered, and exchanged a look. “It just eased up,” Zweinar explained, panting a little. “The c… Manchester has a star on their hands with Christiansen. Eleven goals in sixteen games. The only one who comes close is Nikita Paris, at a distant eight…”

“If we get another push like that, I don’t know about Zweinar, but for myself, I won’t be able to continue,” Ida said. 

“We can point,” Zweinar said. He whimpered a little. “My head…”

“Your friend is in the…” Tears sprang to Ida’s eyes. “There are three options for the legal structuring of a company in Norway. Enkeltpersonforetak is for companies with only one owner. Beyond that is the partnership, for which there are no initial capital requirements; and of course the limited company, either private or public depending on the initial capital investment.”

Brynjar’s head came up, as if he had scented something. “The basement of the museum,” he murmured. “ _Or_ that copse of trees. Both has that magic. Bård, you and I takes the copse; Finn and Vegard, the basement.” He put a hand on Ida’s shoulder, and looked to Zweinar. “You has pained yourselves enough.” Brynjar made a soft noise, and looked down, then back at the rest of them, eyes very wide.

Ida was pointing, tremulously, with one hand, to the Botanical Museum. The other hand held a switchblade, buried to the hilt in Brynjar’s side. When Ida saw the others looking, she looked down as well, and yanked her hand away from the handle with a little cry. Brynjar pressed his hand to his side, fitting shaking fingers around the handle. Blood welled up between them and started to spatter on the grass. With a whimper, he used his other hand to draw the blade out, over Vegard’s protest, and threw it a little away from him. 

Zweinar stood frozen, his face red and twisted, his throat working. “Run!” he exploded. 

Finn gave Zweinar’s arm a little squeeze, and then he rushed to Brynjar and got under his left arm. Vegard skinned off his t-shirt, balled it up into a pad, and reached under Brynjar’s shirt to press it to the wound before getting under his right arm. Bård seemed at a loss. “Get his feet up,” Vegard said, trying to sound calmer than he felt. Bård grabbed Brynjar’s feet, and they rushed him away, through the botanical gardens, looking for the entrance.

“113?” Vegard suggested as they reached the more populated areas of the gardens. 

“Get him out of here first,” Finn said. “They could be back.” He pointed to a white van idling on one of the paved walkways, its back doors standing open. They ran for it. Bård signalled to the driver to roll down her window. “Our friend is hurt. He needs to go to the hospital. Can you take him?”

“No,” Brynjar begged in a small voice. He was very white.

Vegard had expected a public works employee in a safety vest and perhaps a hard hat, but the driver was an elegant and very well preserved older woman. Her passenger looked more the part, a young man who wore jeans and a turtleneck and a knit cap despite the heat, and who looked to her for an answer. “Oh!” the driver said. “Certainly! We haven’t room for all four of you, but perhaps one of you can ride in the back?” Her eyes settled on Finn. “You?”

Finn climbed into the back of the van, and helped Vegard and Bård get Brynjar inside, over Brynjar’s feeble protests. He pressed Vegard’s blood-soaked t-shirt to Brynjar’s abdomen, so that when Vegard took his hand away, the pressure was still there. 

“Don’t you worry,” the driver said. “We’ll take care of him.”

“Thanks!” Vegard and Bård closed the doors, and the van pulled away, going very fast.

“Do you think he’s gonna be okay?” Bård asked softly.

“He’s magic,” Vegard said. “He’s a god.” He thought about the direction the van was headed. “They’ll probably take him to Oslo Hospital. If Finn doesn’t get in touch, we’ll call.”

“If they take him to a regular hospital, they’re not going to find anything weird about him, are they?”

“I don’t _think_ so,” Vegard said. “But he did seem worried.”

“Calle,” Bård said, and they took off back across the grass at a jog. Vegard wished he weren’t topless, but there was nothing to be done for it.

***

Calle put the game controller down decisively. “I’ve gotta go,” he said. “Bård and Vegard are waiting for me. I can hear their voices outside. They're starting to sound upset.”

His friend didn’t want him to leave. It hadn’t been long, and the food was still coming. And who knew when would be the next time they could get together?

“I know... and this is an awesome game, and thank you for letting me play it. But I’m done now, and my friends are waiting for me.”

Dear old whoever was sorry to see him go. But all right, there was just the headgear to take off...

“Headgear?” Calle said. He didn’t remember putting any headgear on, let alone anything that would require the complicated unlocking mechanism that his friend grabbed now. It looked for all the world like a tiara, and when it touched Calle’s (bare, he had known all along it was bare) forehead, he no longer felt like protesting.

***

The patch of lawn where Brynjar had been stabbed was deserted. Red droplets on the grass marked the spot. The switchblade lay a metre or so away, filmed with Brynjar’s blood. They looked all around, but there was no sign of Ida or Zweinar.

“There’s the Botanical Museum,” Vegard said. “There’s the copse of trees. My vote is to check the building first; they’ve had him for days.”

They set off at a run. Bård wondered idly what they would do if someone in the building stopped them and wanted to know why Vegard didn’t have a shirt. But the museum wouldn't open until 11.00; right now it would probably be next to deserted. 

A wave of dread washed over him, threatening to inundate him, and he fought it back. Yes, what had happened to Brynjar was awful, but they owed it to him to keep going. 

Suddenly, Bård realized that he was running alone. He turned back, and saw Vegard curled up on the ground. Maybe it was Vegard’s dread he was feeling. “Go!” Vegard said in a strangled voice, when Bård approached. “Get him. I can’t, I can’t.”

Bård ran to a side entrance. He softly sang the lock open, and slipped into the stairwell. Downstairs seemed like the best place to keep someone for an extended period. He whistled up the extra layer of glamour-cancelling on his contacts, and jogged through the halls, ducking in at every open door, calling softly for Calle at every closed one, and listening for the smallest sound. 

One door had broken shreds of what might have been a concealment spell. The spell was old, but the breaking of it was fresh. Bård flung open the door, and startled a haggard-looking graduate student hunched over a computer. “Sorry,” Bård said in a hurry. “I’m just looking for my friend.”

“Was your friend in my office?” the student demanded in Norwegian with a Brazilian accent. 

“I… I don’t know.”

“Because someone left a hell of a mess.” He gestured at the litter of peach pits, candy bar wrappers, and wadded cellophane in one corner. He shook his head in amazement, dreadlocks bouncing against his shoulders. “If it was your friend, tell him to clean up after himself next time! Or herself,” he amended.

“I don’t know if this is even the room,” Bård said. “Do you know what’s been going on in here lately?”

The man threw his hands in the air. “It has been a _weird_ few weeks. I… don’t know if they were working and they closed the door… I only started this year, and I guess closing the door changed the layout of the place enough that I… I kept getting _lost_. On the way to my own office! All my work is in here. I was going out of my mind!” He patted the monitor lovingly. “It’s all here, thank god. But they left an awful mess.”

Bård inspected the corner on the pretext of helpfully gathering up the garbage. There were the shreds of spells here. He could see bright afterimages. Calle had been here, but now he was gone. He left the student clicking away in front of the screen, and checked out the rest of the building, keeping a careful eye out for telltale spells. But there was nothing, not anymore. He checked every room, just to be thorough, before rushing back to Vegard.

His brother had propped himself up against a tree. He’d wrapped his arms around himself and was shaking, and there was a puddle nearby where he’d been sick on the grass.

“I’m right here,” Bård said, and sat down close to him, but well away from the puddle. Their link showed him the waves of dread and anxiety and despair that engulfed Vegard. Truthfully, Bård wasn’t feeling very good himself: he felt lightheaded and gaspy, like the bottom had fallen out of the world, and some of it had to be from Vegard, but he hadn’t liked the sight of Brynjar bleeding and afraid either. He tried to find his own calm, and then send it. “Just breathe. Just breathe.”

Vegard nodded wordlessly. His hands were clasped behind his neck, and he was nearly bent double.

“Breathe. You’re okay.”

“I don’t feel okay,” Vegard whispered, shaking his head, and tears flew. “I... for a few minutes I felt like I was suffocating.”

“You’ve got air,” Bård said. “Just breathe. Breathe.”

“Did you find anything?”

“I think so, but he was gone by the time I got there.”

Vegard’s face crumpled with pain. “Bloody hell. It was all for nothing.”

***

Lunch was ready when Una finally got back, a salad with quail eggs and smoked salmon, and a raspberry truffle tart. She ate, watched the last twenty minutes of _Who Wants to Marry a Teenage Vampire?_ , and then turned her attention to the two changelings who stood glaring in front of her throne.

“I like Lionel the best,” she said, “but I think, realistically speaking, that it will be Mary.” She knew they’d been standing there when she got in, so she knew they’d seen it all. “What do you think?”

“Kill me,” Ida said through her teeth.

“And me,” said Zweinar. 

“Oh, no no no, you dear things. I’m not going to do that! Don’t you understand? You did perfectly.” She tried to fathom how it must look to them, and favoured them with a maternal smile. “I know you _meant_ for it to be treachery, but as far as I’m concerned, this makes up for the past four years.” Her eyes went to Zweinar. “Well, seven for you, dear.”

“ _Kill us._ ”

“Don’t you see, though? Now we can get at the real ones without any interference. And we can still make this work. They’ll want to help us when they understand, I’m certain of it.”

“You… made… me…” Ida’s face twisted with effort, but the flow of words cut off.

Una descended from her throne and gave Ida’s head a reassuring pat. “I know you don’t understand, dear, but it’s all for a good cause.” She looked at their eyes, and sighed. She traced a glyph over Zweinar’s forehead, and the fury melted from his face, his eyes blanking. Then she did the same for Ida, and the shorter woman’s look of sick apprehension softened into neutrality. Una patted their heads again. “Go and sit somewhere comfortable,” she directed, and they shuffled away. Pity you couldn’t do that in company anymore. It was political correctness gone wild. But she supposed that when you were faced with big injustices you couldn’t fix, you manufactured little ones that you could.

***

The Wulver at the front desk was someone Bård and Vegard had never met before. When they asked to see Calle, she took them down to the basement, where strains of a delicate melody drifted over two naked humans and one wolf, fast asleep, eschewing their Kevlar mattresses for the floor. All three were covered in blood, and the ravaged carcasses of small animals stood in corners.

The music was coming from the fourth cage. It stopped, and a blond head turned. The man who took his fingers from the strings of the lyngepause and looked up at them was unmistakably Henning. “Calle’s gone,” he said, drawing his knees to his chest. “I’m sorry.”

“What do you mean _gone_?” Bård demanded. 

“They took him away. He’s still alive, but…” Henning made a couple of motions, like a cat coughing up a hairball, but the words wouldn’t come. “He’s out of range of me.”

“I’m sorry, Henning,” Vegard said, “but it looks like you’re going to have to stay here a little while longer.”

“Don’t be sorry,” Henning said, resting his blond head against the bars. “Goodness knows I’d rather be back on Ostøya, but none of that was your fault. I’m safe here for the moment. I don’t have to lie, and I can’t hurt anyone. The food is excellent. And I have this.” He strummed the lyngepause with a sweet dreamy smile on his face. “I know it was for him, but is it all right if I hang onto it?”

“Of course,” Bård said. Now, with the chase a couple of days removed, he found it easier to sympathize with Henning. “Ida stabbed Brynjar,” he said.

: _Why did you tell him that? It’ll only make him feel bad. He can’t do anything._ :

Henning sagged. “Brynjar is… Finn’s brother, right? Is he going to be okay?”

“We don’t know,” Vegard said out loud. “We hope so.”

***

Finn hadn’t called by the time they left Wulverhuset, and he wasn’t answering his phone, so Vegard tried their landline. Melantha picked up. “Vegard, is Finn with you?” she demanded, sounding put out.

“He’s with Brynjar,” Vegard said, and explained what had happened.

“Oh dear gods,” Melantha whimpered. Then, away from the phone, she shouted, “Shut _up_ , Mama, something really bad just happened!” In the background, a wail rose, and she pleaded, “Oh honey, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean… Oh, sweetie. Mama’s just scared, and frazzled, and…”

“Look,” Vegard soothed, “you don’t worry, okay? He’s a god, and Finn’s with him, and he’s bound to be okay. And I’ll call Jessalyn and tell her. And if you need us for anything at all, you’ve got my number and Helene’s number. All right?”

“All right,” she said, and her voice was choked with tears. “Bye.” She hung up.

Vegard swallowed back tears of his own, and hung up. “Bård,” he said raggedly, “could you call Jessalyn for me?” Things did not feel like they were going to be okay, and he’d had his fill of lying for the day.

***

Another missile had hit, and there was a roar from the crowd in the corner, who was watching it on the big screen. Finn rolled his eyes a little. The man behind the bar grinned and shook his head. “It’s not _real_ anymore,” he said quietly, taking Finn’s mug. “It doesn’t count. Another?”

“No, thanks,” Finn sighed. He’d needed a stiff drink after the afternoon’s events, but he didn’t want to overdo it. “I should get going; I’ve got a long way home. My fiancée is gonna kill me.”

“Ooh,” said the man behind the bar, wincing. 

“I thought my brother might show up, but he hasn’t.”

“Not a bad thing,” said the man behind the bar. “Can I get you something to eat, for the road? They’ve got an ox over there by the games table; I bet I could snag you a haunch, if I tell them what’s up.”

“No, thanks, I...” Finn paused. “You know what? Would I be stuck here forever if I got the cheese sticks?”

The man behind the bar waved that off. “Do I look Greek to you? Eat them here, though; they’re no good cold.” He pulled a steaming basket of them out from behind the bar, and added a little pot of marinara sauce for dipping. 

“Thanks, man. What do I owe you?”

“Since you ask... you’ve got that show, right? There’s a guy out there named Brutus Ondvil. He keeps sending us kids.” He gestured at another table, in a different corner, where a cluster of little girls had rigged up the electric train set to somehow carry a catapult that triggered when it got to the bridge. 

Finn’s eyes flew wide. “Wouldn’t it be more a job for the police, though?”

“Maybe, but you’re who I’ve got.”

The catapult’s missile hit a small plastic cow, toppling it, and the table in the other corner roared. “Done, then. Done.”

The cheese sticks were a dice five. Not really their specialty. Finn thanked the man again, and went to the exit. 

A massive woman, her yellow hair in two braids as thick as his wrists, moved to bar his way. “Other side, honey.”

“No need, Modgud,” called the man behind the bar. “He’s Brynjar Kvam’s brother.”

She raised her eyebrows, looking unimpressed. “Oh, so that’s how we work now?” Then her eyes softened as she looked down at Finn. “Your pardon,” she said, standing aside to let him pass.

“It’s okay,” Finn said, profoundly embarrassed. “Thanks.”

“Remember, keep to the path,” she called after him.

He wandered out, and the double doors shut behind him. He crossed the bridge over the rushing river. He’d never been this far from home before, and it was quite dark out here, but he did know the general direction he was supposed to go in. 

Finn didn’t have his phone on him to tell him the time, but he felt like he’d been travelling for a long time when something drew his attention. He knew the dangers of straying from the path, though, and fortified himself with thoughts of Melly and Riri, and tried to pass. The pull on him was strong, almost unbearable, but he crept forward relentlessly. He was curious, very curious, but that was how they got you: just a look, you’d promise yourself, to make sure that it wasn’t a cry for help from a loved one, and then your real loved ones never saw you again.

He kept edging forward. The pull ebbed, relaxed. But as it let go, there was something else with it: anguish and a kind of complicated resignation that bounced back and forth between despair and relief tinged with self-loathing.

He pressed on, and the only lingering feeling was one that he’d missed something important.

Finn stopped on the path. He turned back. The pull was gone. Whatever had reached out to him was still there, but it had forgotten all about him. 

For a long time he watched the space it had come from, trying to make sense of it. Finally, of his own free will, Finn approached. 

And left the path.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Suggested musical pairing: Cream's "Tales of Brave Ulysses" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8hLc_nqx8g


	9. A Pair of Awakenings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Meanwhile in Ithaca / The lotophage / Brynjar's undertaking / A message... / Bad information / ...And a bottle / sit tight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edited to fix a wee bit of inadvertent head-hopping.

On Friday, two days after the terrible phone call from Vegard, Melantha answered the door with Riri cradled in one arm and spit-up all down the front of her blouse. She was half expecting a pair of solemn dálki officers needing her to identify a couple of bodies. But an elf about her age stood there, holding a bottle of Gammel Reserve. He had light brown wavy hair and green eyes, and he’d of course gotten taller, but she knew that face. “ _Petriel?_ ”

“Melantha,” he said. “You look enchanting.”

“Um. Thanks.”

“And who’s this bright-eyed little treasure?”

Melantha was unable to keep a tired smile off her face. “This is Rhiannon. She’s eight weeks old.”

He held out the bottle. “Your mom invited me for dinner. She said that you’d just had some bad news and could use a friend.”

“Come in,” she said a bit numbly, stepping back. “I guess she wanted it to be a surprise. It worked,” she added with a little laugh. When his shoes were off, she led him through to the kitchen. “I don’t know what she has planned. My fiancé usually does the cooking, but his brother was attacked on Saturday, so he’s…” 

“Over there, naturally,” Petriel said. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t realize.” He set the bottle on the counter. “Maybe it would be better for us to catch up some other time.”

She was about to say that that would probably be best, but Ariadne chose that moment to breeze in. “Petriel, darling! So nice to see you again! I’m so glad you could come. Tell me, how are your parents?”

“I suppose they’re pretty good, my lady. I haven’t seen them in a few months.”

“Dear, when did you get so formal? Call me Ariadne.”

“Um,” he said. “Okay.” He brought his hands together. “Is there anything I can help with?”

Ariadne waved the thought away. “You’re a gem, but I know my way perfectly well around a kitchen. I’ll cook us something delicious. _And healthy_ ,” she added with a meaningful look at Melantha. “Oh! And I’ll take the baby while you go change into something more presentable, there’s a good girl.”

Melantha gave her mother a smile that was all sunshine and barracudas, and handed her Riri. 

Ariadne kept up a steady flow of chatter during dinner--chicken breast with rice and asparagus boiled limp and grey. She asked Petriel about his job, about his schooling, about his many celebrated family members and their contributions to elvenkind. She took every opportunity to praise Petriel’s politeness, his diligence, his good connections, his illustrious relatives, and the amount of promise that he showed to go much, much further. 

She would not let either of them touch the dishes. “Melantha, dear, you have a guest,” she admonished, a little sternly. “Go and entertain him. Why don’t you two go for a walk?”

“Riri will want to eat soon,” Melantha said. 

“You pumped during her afternoon nap. I can take care of it, dear. Go have fun with your friend. It sounds like you’ve both done a lot since high school.”

“I don’t want to be away,” Melantha said. “What if Finn calls?”

“He hasn’t shown you an ounce of consideration, taking off like that without even a word, so I don’t see why you should hang about the phone waiting for him. Surely you trust your own mother to pass on a message!”

Sure. The message that Melantha was taking advantage of his family tragedy to go out with another guy. “But I’m knitting a blanket for the baby,” she said, thinking of the heap of yarn in the corner of the living room. “I want it done by winter, and the only way to do that is to set a goal and stick to it. Isn’t that right, Mother?”

“I didn’t know that you had taken up knitting,” Ariadne said, her voice cool and careful.

“I haven’t had time to do much lately,” she explained. 

“I should probably get going anyway,” Petriel said uncertainly. 

“We are _not_ going to compel you to eat and run,” Ariadne told him. “Go and catch up in the living room, if you must knit, Melantha.”

Melantha went in and snatched up the half-finished piece in the corner, and then took her spot--their spot--on the soft leather couch. With her chin, she motioned Petriel over to the chair in the opposite corner. 

Petriel sat, and looked carefully back at the closed living room door, and leaned forward. “Okay, so what’s the deal with your fiancé?” he demanded, _sotto voce_. “Because I get the idea that your mom is selling me hard, and that’s…” He let his expression and a waggle of his hand finish the sentence for him.

Melantha sighed. “It’s not my place to discuss it, but… she disapproves of his lineage.” She ran a hand through her hair distractedly. “He’s been gone since Wednesday, and I know if Brynjar is hurt it makes sense for him to be there, but I’m starting to worry. He hasn’t even called. What if something happened to him? They had a bit of a blowup before he went out that last time. What if Mama said something to him that made him think I didn’t want him?”

“Is he Riri’s father?”

“Yeah.” 

“You think he’d just abandon the two of you without saying anything?”

“If she caught him on a bad day, she could convince him we would be better off without him, but even then he wouldn’t slink off without saying anything. If she caught him on a good day, on the other hand, he might go off and do something silly to prove himself worthy of me.” She frowned at the needles in her hand, and the piece taking shape on them. Did she loop the yarn like so? Obviously not. 

“We talked about me all during dinner. Tell me about you.”

She half shrugged, and tried another way of making loops. Nope. “Still looking for something steady, although not as much just lately. I do freelancing, and sometimes Gisela Freidag contracts me out for research jobs and whatnot.”

He whistled. “Gisela Freidag! There’s a big name. I’m still mucking around with favourite sons of the Bright Court who can’t manage money to save their lives.”

“Yeah, well, favourite sons of the Bright Court don’t particularly want their names associated with the wayward daughter of a convicted felon.”

“Any more than you’d want your name associated with theirs,” he said with a grimace. “They’re not bad people, but… let’s just say it makes me grateful for my mom’s influence. I don’t particularly want into that circle.” He shook his head. “Speaking of which, tell me about this fiancé of yours.”

“His name is Finn. He works in television. He is _definitely_ not in that circle.”

“Your eyes light up when you talk about him,” Petriel observed.

“Yeah,” she sighed. In trying to undo her latest experiment, she undid some of the good part. “I just wish I knew where he was.”

***

The mind is a wonderfully adaptable thing, and a person can get used to virtually any set of circumstances. Vegard, had he been there, could have told him that: last winter he had become accustomed to levels of pain that, when he’d restored his telepathic connection with his brother, had made Bård’s knees buckle.

It was the same thing with pleasure. After a few days, it was still very very pleasant, but Calle gradually found himself able to pay attention to other things. Like, for example, the vague discomfort that turned out to be, upon examination, thirst. Like the faint medicinal smell. Like the insistent feeling that something was very wrong. Like the pink cartoon cat bending over him, calling his name. 

Calle blinked hard. The cat prodded him. He wore a boater with a yellow feather in it, and a yellow Hawaiian shirt with a lei of red flowers. A purple cartoon umbrella and a battered cartoon suitcase covered in stickers sat in the corner. Calle’s fogged brain conjured up a name. “Stian?”

“We have to get out of here, Calle, and it would be good to hurry.”

Calle sat up in his chair, and sank back dizzily. Although the room was brightly lit, he couldn’t see the walls. He’d been supposed to go somewhere with Stian, hadn’t he? A vacation. “What... what the hell am I wearing?”

Stian handed him a cup of water, and held his hand steady as he put it to his lips. The cat’s paws were dry and soft and a little chalky, like American marshmallows. “Diapers, a tiara, and a couple of spells we can worry about later.” He opened up the suitcase and produced a dark jogging suit. “Get changed into this.”

Calle’s hand went to the tiara, but as it shifted he felt a sickening wave of existential protest, a howling in his soul, and jerked his hand away with a gasp.

“It does that,” Stian said, “and I’m so sorry, but we can’t leave it on you.”

Calle understood, even as he lowered his shaking hand, that the cat had a point. They’d never make it through the metal detectors at the airport if he was wearing it. Besides, as terrifying as the prospect was, something about taking it off also felt _right_. He gritted his teeth, and pulled the tiara off, leaving himself feeling raw and naked and somehow more himself. As it clattered to the floor, he curled up on his chair, whimpering.

Stian perched on the armrest. “Can I hug you?” he asked gently. Calle nodded, and he felt paws on his shoulders, and buried his face in Stian’s soft, chalky fur. Stian purred and nuzzled his hair, and gave him forehead kisses. They helped immensely.

Finally, Calle sat up. “Kaja,” he said. “Knut. Sine.”

“You get changed. I'll stand guard.”

***

On the third day, Brynjar jerked awake from confused panicky dreams. The motion had torn thin roots from his back and neck and shoulders, and sent pain rocketing through his belly.

Freki, visible against a clear blue sky, growled and snapped at him until he lay back down. Huginn fluttered over to perch on his ribs, turning his head to examine his wound first with one eye and then the other, and croaked reassurance. 

It took Brynjar hours to snap all the roots he’d put into the bath of nutrients he was lying in. Each one was a sharp little pain, like plucking a hair, and left a little spot of blood on his skin. Twice he lay back to rest, and dozed off. But finally he was able, with a lot of help, to climb out and sit down, and drink the soup from the thermos the wolves had brought, and put on some jogging pants and a button-up shirt that had only a little bit of drool on it. 

He had a quantity of Sleipnir’s silk in his gut, threaded in place by careful beaks, and his abdominal cavity had been purified in a decidedly off-label use of balefire. Every motion hurt. Exhaustion dragged at him. He was quite sure he wasn’t ready to be exerting himself yet, but he was equally sure that there was something that had to be done, and that he should be part of doing it. 

He didn’t strictly need to be along for the next part, but he wanted to, so Sleipnir bound him to her back and gave him the smoothest ride she could to Oslo, to the artificial bay called Bispevika, and deposited him gently on the gravelly shore. She waded in, unerringly, to the spot over which Huginn and Muninn circled. Not two minutes later, she waded out, dragging a ragged, waterlogged shape in her teeth.

Brynjar tried at least to get the rocks out, but they were too heavy for him to lift without straining at his healing wound. Eventually Sleipnir just spun silk around the whole sodden, dripping package and took everything back to Asgard, not to Valaskjolf where Brynjar made his home, but to the place where he’d awakened. Vegard would have recognized the exact spot: a valley with a lake at the bottom of it. In the middle of the lake was an island, and in the middle of the island was a small mound, beside which Sleipnir let the bundle down. In the middle of the small mound was a pool fed by a spring.

The ravens had followed Sleipnir all the way, and now the wolves joined too. Fenrir nosed at the bundle, and licked it top to bottom, and swiped the silk off it with one claw. Then he sat back on his haunches and started to howl.

Brynjar painstakingly got to his knees beside Finn’s waterlogged corpse. He tried to undo the ropes around him, and couldn’t; they were swollen, and his left hand didn’t have the strength. Geri nosed in between them, gently, carrying Brynjar’s hunting knife in her mouth. He took it, with thanks, and sawed through the cords. With Geri holding Finn up, and Freki helping with the heaviest bits, and plenty of pauses for rest, Brynjar was able to cut off Finn’s sodden, filthy clothing.

No need to guess what had happened. Purple bruises stood out on Finn’s grey throat, and his lungs were full of salt water. The fish had eaten his eyes, but Brynjar used the grey eye to look through to his palate, and saw petechiae. Finn had been strangled unconscious and then they’d put rocks in his pockets and thrown him in the fjord to drown. The brothers must have been dumped in the harbour together. Sleipnir had had to choose which one to rescue first, and she had chosen Brynjar. 

“My brother, my brother,” Brynjar sighed, pressing his cheek to Finn’s, brushing wet curls from the cold forehead. He jerked back as Fenrir’s massive tongue swiped the side of Finn’s face again, and then hissed with pain, because moving that quickly still hurt. The wolf whined in contrition. 

Finally, Brynjar disengaged and moved gingerly away from the mound. Fenrir slunk along with him, and got under him as a backrest when he found a spot to settle down. 

He made Melantha’s phone speak. “Melantha, it are Brynjar Kvam. ...Yes, he are with me right now. ...I are mendifying, thank you.” He had been picking harebell and bunchberry flowers, dianthus and cross-leaved heath as he spoke. He’d seen a physiotherapist in the fall, and she’d told him that working with his hands would help strengthen the weak one. It had gotten much better on its own, but the left still wasn't as strong as the right, so he kept up with it. Now his fingers wove the flowers together as he talked. “I fear I cannot. He are right with me, looking most forlorn, but he have lost his voice. You knows how he runs himself ragged. ...I fear caring for me with his characteristeriffic selflessness have laid him quite low.” Huginn and Muninn landed near him. Huginn had pine boughs; Muninn had ivy and a sprig of acorns. He wove them in as deftly as he was able. “His lungs sounding like they have half of Oslofjord in them. Now that I are ambulatory, I are quite firm: he may not speak, he may not get up, and I will now caring for him until he are well enough to come home. ...No, no, I has no intention of overdoing it. …Oh, thank you! Thanking Vegard for me as well? That are a great load off both our minds. ...Yes, of course. Of course. I understands, you need not to explain. That can be done now. You and Riri both has my love, and his.”

When he had broken the connection, he sat quietly for a little while. He’d tried to be so careful, but he was still sore and exhausted, and he’d probably just earned himself another day of lying here. 

When he had the strength to turn around, Sleipnir whuffled his ear. He shook his head slowly. “Go ahead, my lovely. I has quite exceeded my usefulness today, and yet there are one more thing I have promised.”

The horse dipped a hoof in the water of the pool he had awakened in and closed her eight eyes, and neighed. A wave of light passed over the surface, and the pool was renewed. 

Moving more slowly and carefully than ever, Brynjar laid the wreath of flowers and boughs on Finn’s brow. Then he pinched a line of light out of the air, getting it a bit longer than he knew he would need. He turned back to the corpse. “Apologetifications,” Brynjar said as he ran the line of light up from Finn’s instep. “I knows this is an indignity, but Melantha have countered her mother's meddlings by placing the order for your wedding suit, and needs thy inseam.”

When Brynjar was done and the line of light was coiled in his breast pocket, Sleipnir and Fenrir gently lifted Finn into the water, nudging him until he was submerged completely. A bubble escaped his cold lips.

***

The woman at the door was a vision of loveliness. “Hello,” she said, looking discomposed. “Is your husband home?”

“He’s working in the garden at the moment,” Helene said. “Can I ask what this is about?”

“Oh, yes, of course. My colleague and I happened to drive his, ah, friend to the hospital a few days ago.”

“Oh!” Helene said, turning away. “Hang on a moment; I’ll get him.”

“No,” the woman said. “No, I’d just as soon not have to deliver the news face to face. The nerve I worked up is quite gone.”

Helene turned back around with a sinking feeling.

“I went to see how the young man was doing,” the woman said, “and he’d passed away just this morning. Oh, I know, dear. It’s so sad. I did get to speak with the other one, but he wasn’t... quite...”

“Of course not,” Helene said numbly. “Finn... Finn would be inconsolable.”

“You might want to look to him, dear. I don’t mean to make you worry, but he was talking about hurting himself.”

“Thank you,” Helene said. “Thank you. If you’ll excuse me...”

“Dear,” the woman said, holding up a hand. “There’s one more thing. I was to give your husband this. The brother said the, ah, departed wanted your husband to have it.”

Helene took the small wrapped package from her, with mumbled thanks, and shut the door.

She found Vegard weeding the kitchen garden. He’d been filming in the mornings, and then spent all Thursday and Friday afternoon with Jessalyn, reworking the script for that week’s episode of _News from Nobody_ , and rehearsing. In a pinch he could stand in for Finn; he’d done it two months ago, albeit with Brynjar in his earpiece, nudging him if his own mannerisms started to creep through. But Bård would need a lot more preparation and rehearsal before he could stand in for Brynjar--he’d only ever done Brynjar’s voice for a minute or two at a time, and the voice was the easiest part of being Brynjar Kvam--and anyway one of them needed to hold the fort at Concorde. So it was going to be Vegard and Jessalyn, and Brynjar would just have to be away that day. It was exhausting work, nerve-wracking because they’d heard nothing from either cousin, and he was using this time to decompress. 

Well. He had been.

He must have seen something in her expression or the way she hugged herself, because he looked up at her in alarm, and scrambled to his feet. “Helene?”

She took his hands. “Brynjar’s gone,” she said. “I’m so sorry.”

“I have to sit,” he said, and folded slowly to the ground. He sat with one knee up, his forehead pressed into the crook of his elbow, as she told him everything.

Vegard wiped his hands on the grass and fished his phone out of his pocket, and tried to call. He got Finn’s voicemail. His voice cracked as he said, “Call me back, Finn. I need you. We all need you.” 

***

Bård was unreachable too, but he showed up in person ten minutes later, parking his car and approaching at a dead run, naked anguish on his face. “Brynjar?”

“Yeah,” Vegard said huskily. 

Bård dropped, next to him. “Christ.” His eyes filled with tears. 

“I knew,” said Vegard, in a monotone. “When I had that panic attack in the park... it felt like the night they broke his divinity. Worse than that. I just _knew_.”

“But the woman at the door said he died just this morning,” Helene said, sounding confused.

“How’s Finn holding up?” Bård asked. 

Vegard fumbled for his phone again. “I can’t reach him,” he said. “I’ve called his cell phone three times. And the woman who told Helene said he’s suicidal.”

Bård took the phone, went to Vegard’s contacts, and found the number for the landline, and held the phone between them. “Hi, Vegard,” Melantha singsonged. The brothers exchanged a look. She didn’t know.

“Melantha,” Vegard said carefully, “do you know where Finn is?”

“Asgard,” she sighed, sounding fondly exasperated. “He gave himself pneumonia or bronchitis or something. Brynjar _finally_ called to tell me. Are you okay, Vegard? You sound awful.”

“Brynjar... _called_?” Bård said.

“This morning. He sounded terrible himself, but it sounds like he’s making Finn take it easy, and I’m selfishly glad.”

“He called from Asgard this morning,” Bård repeated. “And he’s looking after Finn.”

Vegard felt the punched-in-the-gut feeling start to ease. “He’s okay?”

“Yeah. Why, what’s up, guys?”

“Someone gave us bad information,” Bård said. Colour was slowly coming back into his cheeks, and the tension had ebbed out of his voice. “How are you doing? You’re not all alone there, are you?”

“No, Riri and I have my sainted mother,” she said acidly. “And Jess is coming by later for Grandiosa and horror movies. Sort of to celebrate; we’ve both been really worried. Vegard, how are you doing? On track for Tuesday?”

“On track,” Vegard said, pleased to hear that his voice sounded much steadier.

After they’d said their goodbyes, the three of them looked at each other for a long time. Then Helene’s eyes widened, and she took off for the house at a run. 

She returned wearing oven mitts, carrying a small wrapped package with a pair of tongs. When both brothers eyed her quizzically, she said, “The woman who came to our house, who didn’t want to speak to you, Vegard, but did want you to know that Brynjar was dead and Finn was suicidal, left this for you.”

“It’s probably some kind of trap,” Bård opined.

“Of course it’s a trap!” She stalked past them. “I’m going to put it in the boathouse, where you can inspect it at your leisure. I don’t want the kids getting into it.” 

“Leave me the tongs and mitts?” Vegard called after her.

***

Bård stayed for smoked salmon and lemonade, and then he and Vegard went out to the boathouse to examine the package. With the tongs, Vegard took the paper off, and uncovered a bundle wrapped in white silk. Unwrapping the silk, they found a teardrop-shaped, stoppered bottle, cut from translucent blue crystal. Vegard twisted the tongs this way and that, and liquid sloshed inside. There was no detectable magic on it. With a look at each other, they whistled the first six notes of Johnny Nash’s “I Can See Clearly Now.” And then Vegard lunged away as crystalline white light flooded his vision.

His elbow hit the edge of the dock, and he grabbed out, catching a leg of the work table. He felt a burst of alarm somewhere to his right, and flung his other arm out to catch Bård. His fingers brushed something falling, and there was a _thunk_ as Bård tumbled onto the prow of Vegard’s boat with a squawk. Fortunately, there was no ensuing splash. 

“Are you hurt?” Vegard asked. The impact had broken the glamour-cancelling spell, but neon green and purple spots floated in front of his eyes. Rolling onto his belly, he extended a hand in front of him to help his brother out of the boat.

“I’m okay. Bloody hell.” Bård took his hand, started to pull himself up, and then became oddly still. 

Vegard blinked, trying to clear his vision. “What’s going on?”

Bård’s voice was soft and calm. “Stay put. Don’t move a muscle.”

“Hell. Where is it?”

“A centimetre from your chin at two o’clock.”

“My two o’clock?”

Bård sent him the image. His brother’s vision was blue and orange, but the bottle was mistily right where he said it would be. Vegard stuck an arm out to make sure he was getting the orientation right, and looking through Bård's eyes, drew back carefully. He got to his feet, located the oven mitts on top of the work table, and put the bottle up there. 

Meanwhile, Bård had scrambled back onto the dock. “What _was _that?”__

__Vegard rewrapped the bottle in its silk before pushing it to the back corner of the table, and motioned him out of the boathouse--which he locked behind him--and back outside. His vision wasn’t quite back to normal, but in the sunlight the spots were barely visible. “It sounds like the magic that the cousins were telling us about. The old stuff. It fits what they were saying.”_ _

__“We need their help,” Bård said softly._ _

__“Even they didn’t understand it,” Vegard pointed out. He thought about it. “But… whoever this was did try awfully hard to separate us from them, and make sure we’d eventually give up trying to find them, didn’t they?” As they walked up the path to the house, he thought about how much he needed to talk to Brynjar._ _

__His phone buzzed with a text from ∞∞ ∞∞∞∞∞._ _

____

> zzz

“That makes sense,” Vegard sighed, showing Bård and then pocketing the phone. “If he’s still recovering and now Finn’s sick, they’re both going to need a lot of rest.”

Bård frowned. “Do you think Brynjar was telling Melantha everything?”

“I think,” Vegard said as they reached the house, “that Brynjar tells people as much as they can stand to hear.”

***

On Sunday afternoon, Bård’s phone buzzed, and it was a text from ∞∞ ∞∞∞∞∞, to him and Vegard. 

> safe? 

Dots blinked on and off as Vegard typed.

> All OK  
>  You? 

> bad day  
>  sit tight

Bård asked,

> Do you 2 need anything?

> n  
>  zzz

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Suggested musical pairing: Bolier & Redondo's "Untangled" (featuring Dana Sipos) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORJl8z5tTfM


	10. Old Magics

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A mind map / Summer fun in Oslo #6: woodworking / Petriel does his duty / The crystalline prison / Vegard stands in / The walker on the old roads

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning for child abuse masquerading as therapy.

Bård sat in his office, hunched over a piece of graph paper. He was trying to make a mind map. “Ylvis,” he had written, and “Calle” and “Finn & Brynjar” and “Tørnquist” and “Solberg.” He had written “bottle.” He had written “Thomas Trussel” and “Jaceael Aundael Rhadiel”, with a question mark. He had written “changelings.” He had written “Bergen,” and circled it, and put a bigger question mark there. He had written “old-fashioned.” He wasn’t sure what it was doing there. 

Thomas Trussel and Jaceael Aundael Rhadiel were for followup, weren’t they? He looked them up on the Wild Hunt. There were news stories. The men had had their memories wiped sometime between their apprehension and their interrogation. One had been out of Innilokun Ríki for ten years, the other for twelve. 

He scrolled further down, and found Faebook profiles. Thomas Trussel’s he couldn’t view at all. Jaceael Aundael Rhadiel had two hundred-odd friends. He’d been married to Valeria Ordael Rhadiel for seven years. He worked at a place called Hoof and Talon, which, when he clicked it, proved to be a high-end shoe store for people who didn’t have the same kinds of feet elves and humans had. He was a member of groups called Legal Reform Now, Casualties of the Peaceful Haven Act, Leonora Findael Gives Me Goosebumps, Whatever happened to the Lysaker revel scene?, and Parents of Kids with Malignant Precocity. Bård clicked on all of them. Some of them were closed, and he couldn't see who was part of them or what was being posted. For the ones he could get at, he skimmed the posts. 

One of the other members of the malignant precocity group was Linn Trussel.

Bård sat reading horror stories of tantrums that burned flesh and levelled houses. He found posts by Rhadiel, far down in the feed. His daughter was growing out of it--Bård gathered from the little he’d seen on the page that if parents’ attempts at discipline didn’t scar their kids for life, malignant precocity resolved as soon as they developed self-control--but the shield that had been recommended to him was working wonders. Some people had written back that they would never use such a thing on their child, that the shield was monstrous, and others had replied that this was the only thing that would get their kids to sleep through the night.

Disturbed, Bård clicked back. This was another fight for another day; maybe something he could tell Finn and Brynjar about when they were both back on their feet.

So. This was the profile of a would-be kidnapper. And he’d found the connection to Tom Trussel, but he didn’t know how you got from malignant precocity to attempted kidnapping. If he sifted through enough of those groups, would he find connections to whoever had Calle? He wasn’t used to this, though; he was used to people who had the resources to make his life miserable. He understood how words like “efficiency” and “security” could hide mass suffering, but faced with an ordinary civilian, an ex-con--like his brother, he thought reluctantly--he didn’t know where to look or what to look for. Maybe if he were more versed in magical culture, or if he had Vegard’s gift for pattern recognition, he’d have better luck. He’d have a sense of which words and phrases were dog whistles for xenophobia or hatred of the poor or organized crime or whatever. 

After a few seconds, he picked up his phone and dialled. 

“Bård? Hi, how’s it going?”

“I’m okay, Melantha. How are you and Riri?”

“Same old same old. We both miss her Papa. Any word on him?”

“You’d hear before I do,” Bård assured her. “I’m calling because I’m feeling absolutely useless. Vegard is... doing whatever Finn usually does at this time--”

“At this time?” Melantha laughed. “He’s usually getting ready for the first rehearsal and fussing over Brynjar and Jessalyn like a mother hen.”

“Sorry,” Bård said. “Jessalyn is going to have to look after her own fussing today. Vegard _can_ , but I think he knows better than to do it on someone else’s show. But listen, I’m sitting here in front of the Faebook profile of one of the kidnappers. The only thing I can find that the two of them have in common is this group for something called malignant precocity.”

“It’s a disease,” Melantha said. “Well... not a _disease_. Children are born with really strong magic that they don't have to bother learning how to use, and, like, no conscience.”

“Is anyone born with a conscience preinstalled?” Bård asked her, and then realized that she was paired with one of the few people for whom that was the case. 

“I formulated that badly. I mean, they don't _develop_ a conscience, either. They're too powerful, and there's something missing.”

Bård thought that terrified parents might have difficulty instilling a strong sense of right and wrong during a child's formative years, but what he said was, “That's the only online link between them. I thought I could see what Rhadiel was into, but then I realized, I wouldn’t even know if I saw it.”

“And you think I might?”

“Maybe. I don’t know. Obviously we’re sidelined until the cousins are back, but I thought I could do some sleuthing. I know you’re very busy and you’ve got the baby, and I can always call my friend Per, but you’re more involved than he is, and you're here.”

“No, it’s fine. Bård, it’s _fine_. It’s a good idea. I’ve been feeling useless too, and this is something I can do, and I should probably be thanking you. So thank you.”

“Um. You’re welcome?”

***

Sunday was a writeoff. Brynjar had known it would be. Sleipnir had cocooned him in silk before carrying him back to his bed at Valaskjolf, to make sure he would be a good patient, but she really needn’t have. He let the birds feed him Cheetos and grapes and kjøttboller. He sent exactly three texts. The most demanding thing he did was set up a very small fixed translation portal, so that he didn’t have to get up to pee.

Rest paid off, and on Monday he was well enough for Sleipnir to take him-- _gently_ \--back to the spring. The water had clouded up to a rich reddish-brown, and the moss around the edges was going wild. The skin of the hand he lifted from its warm water bath was slightly less ragged today. But there was still a problem. Brynjar squinted into the air. “Huginn, how managed you?” he shouted up.

Huginn fluttered down and settled on his left shoulder, and nibbled his ear. He replied that by the time the last hunting party had gotten through with him, there was considerably more wrong with him than missing eyes, but he did give Brynjar a recipe.

Huginn had used pitch, but wood or clay or wax or even polished stone would do, so Brynjar used cherrywood. Sleipnir took him to one of Finn’s children, a good strong tree in Ravnedalen, and he asked for a donation, which the tree readily gave. 

After a four-hour nap, Brynjar asked the stones of the field to carve the chunk of wood he’d gotten into two spheres. He polished them smooth in front of the television that night, and set them up before he went to bed, so that they could spend the night in a mixture of honey, oil, tears, a little unavoidable wolf drool from Freki, and the liquor that Finn was soaking in. In three days, they would be good to install, and he’d have but to sing form into them. 

That was plenty for Monday. He’d done a lot, and he was tired, but it wasn’t the awful draining exhaustion of Saturday. In a few days he would talk to his fellow gods and find some answers, but that could wait until Thursday. After he'd done the eyes. If he felt like it. For now he would just rest.

***

“Hey.”

Melantha whirled in her chair. She knew exactly who had sent him, and wondered what her mother would think if she could see _this_ Petriel, slouched, hands in his pockets, his posture telegraphing apology. “Hey,” she said. “What did she tell you?”

“That you’d been out all morning and she was worried sick.”

“Ah. Did she tell you the part where I said exactly where I’d be? Or the part where I have my cell phone on me and there’s been nary a call? _Or the part where I am thirty-three bloody years old?_ ” That last was loud enough to make Riri whimper, and to earn her some disapproving looks from the humans seated at the bank of computers in the Deichmanske Library. 

Petriel backed up a few steps. “The first was implied by her telling me exactly where to find you. I thought about asking the second, but frankly that woman terrifies me.”

Melantha bounced Riri a little in her sling, but the baby was starting to move around, and it was about time for her to eat anyway.

“Well, I’ve done my duty,” Petriel said. “You are clearly alive and well and have not fallen victim to the library gods.” He put two hundred and fifty kroner on the computer table beside her. “Your mom said this was lunch money. Before I go, first how is your brother-in-law doing, and second can I get you anything?”

Melantha looked at her notes. She looked at the page in front of her. “Brynjar’s gonna be okay, thanks. My fiancé is staying with him.”

“Oh thank gods.”

“He gave himself bronchitis, is why he didn’t call.” She logged out of Faebook, and drew a stealthy glyph on the screen, so that the computer would forget where she’d gone. Then, cradling the sling with one arm, she stood up, and smiled. “She told you to take me to lunch, didn’t she? Probably told you where. Maybe even told you what to order for me.”

“She did a big favour for my family,” Petriel said, “and I will humour her to a point, but...”

“I’m starving,” Melantha said. “Give me ten minutes to feed Riri, and--ew, gods, she needs a change too--and we’ll humour her together.”

***

They ate at Tuk Tuk Thai. “If my mom asks, I thought this meant ‘salad,’” Melantha said through her teeth, and ordered the gaeng paneng.

“Is it okay to ask you about your work?” Petriel asked.

“I’d rather tell you about what I was doing when you came in,” she said. “Does the name Jacael Aundael Rhadiel ring a bell?”

He shook his head. So she filled him in, on as much as she could without letting Finn and Brynjar’s changeling status slip. “I thought I’d find something about politics, but Rhadiel’s participation in political discussions fell off about three months ago. His posts turned... odd.”

“Odd how?” Petriel pressed. 

“From being very passionate about certain causes to this weird combination of hope and cynicism. Like… no, this that you’re doing is useless, it isn’t the answer, _I_ have the answer, but I can’t give it to you.”

Petriel snapped his fingers. “Ragnarok!”

“Huh?”

“Okay, before the wolf, I had some friends who were _really_ into Ragnarok. The idea of it. One died in the riots--”

“I’m sorry,” Melantha murmured.

“Thanks. Anyway, then the rest were less into it. But that’s how they all sounded. Like, there’s no point caring about this thing, because it’s all gonna be fixed when the world ends anyway.”

Melantha sighed. “I have a two-month old. I do _not_ have time for another bloody apocalypse.”

“I guess it wouldn’t have to be the apocalypse. Just, anything they were convinced was the real problem. Or the real solution, that all this concern with other stuff is covering up. Hard to say which.”

“Okay,” she said. “Good stuff. This is helpful. Thank you. Now. The other thing is, the only online connection I could find between Rhadiel and his accomplice Thomas Trussel is that he and Trussel’s wife were in a group for parents of children with malignant precocity.”

“Okay?”

“I don’t know much about it, but I know that Rhadiel’s daughter had just started a new treatment. Something controversial, maybe expensive.”

Petriel compressed his lips. “Crystallizing.”

“No… it was some kind of shield.”

“That’s crystallizing,” Petriel said. “‘Shield' is just what they call it. It’s banned magic. It started out being yeah, a shield, something that parents and caregivers would put up around themselves in an emergency, because its structure is very robust. And that was still illegal because of the kind of magic it is, but okay as far as I’m concerned. Then someone found out that if you cast it _on_ the kid, they, ah… They basically turn into a lawn ornament. If they’re old enough to have language, they’ll obey simple commands. I read, I don’t know how true it is, that it used to be used for commanding armies in some war or other. But like, this isn’t a soldier or a changeling or a construct or anything like that; it’s your _kid_ , and all the time they spend crystallized might be a break for you, but it’s time they’re not spending growing and developing and learning how to control their impulses and their magic.”

“You sound like this is a bit close to your heart,” Melantha observed. 

“My cousin was born with MP. My entire family talked about her like she wasn’t even elven. I guess I was as bad as any of them back then, but I _learned_. Now she runs a program over at the Höðr Odinsson for adult survivors. You know all those deficits that people who were born with malignant precocity are supposed to have?”

“Problems with moral reasoning and emotional ties, violent outbursts well into adulthood…” Melantha began, and cast about for others.

“…poor performance at school and work, high rates of substance abuse, domestic violence, and incarceration? Yeah. And that gets used to justify all these treatments, and I don’t know, I never questioned that it made them necessary until Lili pointed something out to me.”

“What was that?” Melantha pressed.

Petriel gave her a grim smile. “Those things turn up with exactly the same frequency in survivors of abuse and emotional neglect.”

“Well, yeah, but how can you ever know which is which?” 

“Know how the version that runs in families is supposed to be less severe?” Petriel asked. 

Her jaw dropped. “Because when it runs in families, the parents remember what it was like. And do things differently.”

“Bingo. Well, most of the time. Parents who were born with MP can still be terrible, but the ones on Lili’s team remember how it was for them, they know their kids are people, and they find different ways of doing things. And the therapies that got used on her weren’t great either, but she says you can tell at a glance whose parents are crystallizing them.”

“Well… I can only imagine how desperate some of them must be.”

Petriel frowned. “It doesn’t matter, Mel. There are things you don’t do to kids.”

“So this crystallizing… is it expensive enough to pull a reformed criminal back into a life of crime?”

“Actually?” he said. “Not from what I’ve heard. There’s someone who just shares the glyphs that let you draw on the pattern of the seed crystals. Gives them away. Of course, I’ve made it clear how I feel about the subject, so no one is going to tell me who supplies them.”

“So we don’t know who finances them, either,” Melantha mused.

“I’ll tell Lili to keep an eye out,” he said.

“Thanks, Petriel. I know my mom enlisted you for some really screwy reasons, but you’ve been a big help.”

Petriel shrugged. “It’s kind of nice to have a mission. Because of the firm, I have to be really careful about the causes I’m seen getting involved with. But this? This is a favour for Lady Aruviel.”

***

Tuesday was harrowing, but less so than the last time. “And I’m Finn Weber,” Vegard told the audience after Jessalyn had introduced herself. “Brynjar Kvam is off with the humans tonight, judging the Nobel Prize’s swimsuit competition.”

He hit all his cues this time, partly because he was more relaxed and partly because with the seating arrangement, Jessalyn could kick him under the table. They had live guests, a huldra and her interpreter. Vegard greeted them with hugs, but Jessalyn took the lead on the interview.

When they were clear, Vegard sagged into his chair, massaging his temples. His head felt fine, but they were starting to get fans hanging around afterward, and Jessalyn was going to make excuses for him. They pantomimed her shooing him back to the dressing room. The thanks he called back to her was genuine.

She darted forward and caught his arm. “Thank _you_ ,” she said, and gave him a quick hug.

***

There was no airport. Calle didn’t know where he’d gotten that idea, except that it had been useful at the time. And he had no idea how long they’d been travelling when the thing caught up to them. If someone had told him he’d been walking for days, he would have believed that. If someone had said it had been only a few minutes, he would have believed that, too.

The road was paved, but he and Stian were the only ones on it. The sky had lightened to grey, and everything was dim, as if it were twilight on an overcast day. Trees rose up on either side of them, but the dimness had leached all the colour out of them, and made them unidentifiable. 

Suddenly, Stian stopped short. “Hide,” he said quietly.

“In the woods?”

Stian shepherded him to the edge of the tree line. He handed the suitcase to Calle, and did something to the air around them, pinching and pulling and kneading the darkness in his paws until it folded around Calle. “Just be still,” he whispered, and hastened up to the road.

Dear old whoever strode up, looking much taller and shinier and spikier than Calle remembered. Its voice was jagged now, like sunlight during a migraine, like shards of glass. “Well met...” The thing seemed to be trying to decide how to address Stian, and then gave up and let the sentence hang. “Where is the human?”

“Safe,” Stian said, looking up at dear old whoever with his large expressive eyes and drooping whiskers. He was the only spot of colour in this place, and he shone in the darkness.

“He’s not yours,” dear old whoever hissed.

“No,” Stian agreed. “He’s his own.”

“You’re meddling in affairs not your own, little thing.” Dear old whoever loomed over him, bending lower and lower and lower, its smile getting wider and toothier.

Stian did not cower. “I think you’ll find,” he said quietly--and then his lips curled back, exposing needle-sharp teeth, and his voice was suddenly low and fierce--“that this is very _much_ my business.”

Dear old whoever backed off, and started eyeing the environs. “He’s near. I can smell him.” He wandered closer and closer, and Calle clutched the darkness tighter around him, wondering what he’d do if he were found. Would he be able to resist? He thought, with sudden dread, of the tiara and its sweetness. Would he even _want_ to resist?

As if it had read his mind, the thing pulled out the tiara, turning around and around on the road. Its voice turned soft, wheedling. “Calle, friend, remember this? This was nice, wasn’t it?” 

Calle jerked his gaze from the stone set into the metal. 

The thing’s head turned. It had seen the movement. It glided forward, achingly beautiful, casting about in Calle’s direction. “We can do this again, Calle. You can have everything. This, and the game you love so well, and the most comfortable chair, the most delicious foods.”

Calle barely dared to breathe.

“Do you even know where you’re going? Or who you’re going with? Do you know anything about this upstart?”

Worthy questions. What if Stian was a psychopomp, leading him to the realm of death? But he was pretty sure that what he had been doing before Stian had gotten to him had not quite been living. 

Then the tiara was right in his face, and he was staring into the stone that had ensnared him for... however long it had ensnared him. He was pleased to find that his only reaction was revulsion. 

“You’re close,” dear old whoever said, and there was a smugness in that soft voice that Calle didn’t care for at all. “So close. So tempted. You know what you want. You know what’s right. Come on. Can any joy compare?”

That was too much. Calle met the thing’s eyes. It startled a little, as if it hadn’t expected him to be that close. “My kids,” Calle said levelly. “My wife.”

It reached forward to put the tiara on him, and he broke free of the darkness and ran for the road. It didn’t run like a normal creature; it bent and shimmered like _aurora borealis_ , and streaked out in front of him, cutting him off.

And yet somehow, Stian was between them, gazing up in defiance.

“Little thing,” dear old whoever said reproachfully, and reached past Stian with the tiara. It jerked its hand away with a hiss. Blood welled up in three neat lines, and beaded on the alabaster skin. 

Stian stood there, teeth bared, claws unsheathed, eyes no longer sad. “Leave. Us.”

“Who is he to you, little thing, that you set yourself against the great powers of this realm? Who has engaged your services?”

“He’s under my protection.”

Dear old whoever loomed, grinning a long, toothy grin. “Yes, yes, you’ve established that. I’ll ask you again, and if your answer is interesting, I might even spare your life.” Two centimetres from Stian’s muzzle, it opened its jaws very wide and said, “ _Who are you?_ ” 

“I’m nobody,” Stian said.

“Not interesting,” dear old whoever said.

“Calle, down,” Stian said, his voice soft and calm. Calle flung himself to the cold gravel a nanosecond before dear old whoever blasted Stian with white fire. If it had been fire like he was used to, surely Calle would have burned too, at this distance, but it felt more like electricity, like terror, like ice.

The thing grinned at the column of flame, pouring out power for a very long time. Its gaze shifted to Calle, and it grinned even harder. Then it dropped its hands.

Stian gazed back implacably from the centre of a charred circle. Not even his Hawaiian shirt was singed. His tail lashed back and forth, and he smiled. He put a toe out, and ran it along the blackened ground in front of him in a wide arc. In its wake, grass sprang up, and daisies and white heather burst into bloom. “He is under my protection. And I don’t answer to you.”

Dear old whoever hissed, features contorting with rage. Then its gazed fixed again on Calle. “You’ve made your choice, then, and dissuading you is more trouble than it’s worth. For the moment. But mark this, _friend_ : your protector is not what he seems.” It flung out an arm, and sheeted into the sky as a ribbon of light.

“Are you okay?” Stian asked. He reached slowly forward with his velveted paw until he was touching Calle’s wrist, as if he’d wanted to give Calle ample opportunity to back away if he didn’t want to be touched.

“It didn’t hurt me,” Calle said, scratching the back of Stian’s neck and the fur behind his ears. “What was that thing?”

“A gangari, I think,” Stian said, leaning into Calle’s hand. “During the Iron Wars, a handful of Bright Court warriors gave themselves to be transformed into sentinels, to patrol the old roads. I’ve only heard the stories. They’re immortal, pure magic, and immensely powerful. Which sounds like our friend, doesn’t it?”

Calle’s fingers kept kneading the soft fur. “I think it’s what was keeping me… where I was.”

“The Iron Wars have been over for thousands of years. If it was a gangari, I’m not surprised to find them looking for other gigs.” Stian purred, stretching his neck, and Calle tickled under his chin. Stian let him for about a minute, and then shook himself and drew away. “I asked, and what I heard back was not a ‘Yes I’m okay.’ What can I do?”

“Can I have a hug?” Calle asked.

Stian wrapped his arms around Calle’s waist and hugged. The cat was about the weight of an eight-year-old child, but Calle gathered Stian up in his arms, and lifted him, and buried his face in Stian’s neck fur, and inhaled the scents of ozone and blossoms. Stian seemed surprised for a moment, but then he relaxed and curled up, and put his arms around Calle’s neck, and purred. Calle carried him like that--Stian did have to poke his little muzzle up at the beginning, and tell him they were walking in the wrong direction--for a long time. Having the soft living weight in his arms was intensely comforting, and even when Stian seemed to doze off, with little whistling snores, Calle felt safer.

After a time, Stian stirred and stretched, and rolled out of Calle’s arms, landing neatly and lightly on all fours. He rose up onto his hind legs. “Thank you,” he said, his voice foggy. “That thing was right, though, you know. It might devastate you to hear this, but I’m not actually a cartoon cat.”

“What’s at the end of this road, anyway?”

“Home, I hope,” Stian said.

“Oslo?” 

“Among other things.”

“Then whatever you are, I can wait until we get back to find out,” Calle said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Suggested musical pairing: Rick Wakeman’s “Merlin the Magician” - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJYPut_Yrg8
> 
> Also, I noticed the post date on this chapter and thought I should add--belatedly now--happy birthday, Bård!


	11. Everybody Freeze

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Library of the Divine / Maiden, Mother, Administrator / Brynjar and the art of seduction / Una has visitors / Poirot foils a conspiracy / Bredrygg’s lament / Quoth the ravens / An off-label use of Pepsi Max / Summer fun in Oslo #7: Planning an excursion

As Nergal catalogued the new donations, he hummed a song that hadn’t been popular for millennia. He’d loved a Purushandan scribe, once. The man had lost his leg in battle, and Nergal had been so moved by the beautiful words of his prayers that he’d conjured holy fire to cauterize the stump and purify his blood. The scribe had found work in the palace. At the time, Nergal had teased Akki for his love of words, even though he was well aware that Akki’s words were what had won his heart. He wondered what his love would say now if he could see him here, shelving books written three thousand years hence, that his colleagues all unthinkingly called ancient. Probably Akki wouldn’t tease back. Probably he would marvel at this library, with its many many lifetimes of wisdom, its perfumes of leather and lignin, and its mostly divine clientele.

Someone rang the bell for service. Nergal poked his head around the corner, and saw no one at the desk. Whoever it was must have found what they were looking for on their own. He shrugged, and went back to cataloguing.

“ _Cark_!” 

Nergal craned his neck, and saw one of the Asgardian ravens strutting back and forth across the circulation desk. He came out and ran two gentle fingers over the bird’s back. “Huginn?”

Muninn wagged his head back and forth. He hopped off the desk, and fluttered down one of the aisles, to where a figure in a familiar grey duster crouched on the ground, doubled over. “Brynjar!” Nergal cried, running to kneel by him.

“Nergal,” Brynjar panted. “Might I troubling you for a hand up?”

Nergal helped him get about halfway up, but it was clear that Brynjar was in pain. He was standing, but bent at the waist with his face buried in Nergal’s side, when he said, “I take a break now.”

“Oh, Brynjar. May I?”

“Thou mayst.”

Nergal scooped him up gingerly, and carried him back behind the circulation desk, to the break room, and deposited him on the overstuffed couch. Brynjar curled up, one forearm pressed to his belly. It was the first time Nergal had ever seen him in a button-up shirt.

He drew a mug of water from the tap. Brynjar thanked him, but waved it off frantically, so he set the cup down on the floor next to the couch. “What happened?” he asked. 

Brynjar’s fingers plucked open the bottom two buttons of his shirt, to show his silk-covered wound. “I tried to lifting a book.”

Nergal smoothed Brynjar’s hair, and touched the skin of his belly, far from the silk. “Who did this to you?”

“That is what I were trying to find out in the book.”

“Is this why you’ve been staying away? I... I worried that I’d done something wrong.”

“Thou art a beautiful, silly man, Nergal, who trustifies me not to use my words.”

“Well, I tried to call, but...” Nergal let the sentence hang. Brynjar owned a mobile phone, but most of the time he could see when people needed him and what they wanted to say, and he could broadcast to anything with a speaker, so he very rarely had it with him. Nergal heard movement in one of the other offices. “Beyla, is that you?”

“Váli,” Váli said, filling the doorway. “Who-- Oh! Brynjar, are you all right?”

Brynjar started moving his limbs as if to get purchase to pull himself up, but Nergal put a firm hand on his chest, so he settled for saying, “I are okay. I shouldst not lift.”

“Váli, could you please get him...”

“ _Identifying Spells_ , volume three,” Brynjar supplied. “It are on the floor, I fear.”

Váli returned with the book and opened it on the floor in front of Brynjar. “What kind of spell are you trying to identify?” He tried to take the cup away, but Nergal took it from him, and got a straw, and held it so that Brynjar could drink without bearing its weight.

“Thank you, sweet Nergal. We have been attackified by people impervious to my sight, shielded by hard white light that ripples, dapples, dazzles, puzzles, scatters, refracts. The closestest thing in previous memory were the contents of the power sink some months ago, but that were a blue and diffuse vortex, and this are white and angular and brittle, and so dense.”

“Sounds like grimmurgaldur,” Váli said immediately. “Military-grade magic from the Iron Wars.”

Nergal spread his hands in an I-got-nothing gesture. “I was in Athura.”

“Me on a bike, _I’m_ not an expert,” Váli sighed. “My memories of the Iron Wars consist of drinking myself into a stupor in the forge of Ivaldi while his son Brokkr complained about Gaelic refugees. But I think I know who would know.” His face changed. “Brynjar?”

“Yes?”

“Never mind,” Váli said, peering at him. “You’re done in, aren’t you?” 

“What had you in mind?”

“A trip to see an _old_ friend. But I’ll text her and let her know we’re coming tomorrow.”

“How much of a trip?”

“Across town. Are you sure you’re up to it?”

Brynjar smiled wanly. “If I can lying here for ten minutes, I will be.” He rolled over gingerly and slept for two hours, and Nergal would not allow anyone to wake him.

***

It was late Thursday afternoon when Sleipnir left the old roads and deposited them in an Oslo parking lot. Brynjar, whose colour had improved during his nap, blanched again when he saw the buildings in front of him. “No,” he begged. “I has things I must do! My familiars has taken sufficient care of me.” He shot a desperate look at Sleipnir, who whuffled his hair and nudged him in the direction of the hospital’s main entrance.

“Calm yourself,” Váli murmured. “You’re not going in as a patient.”

They rode the elevator to the top floor. Brynjar wrapped his arms around himself and looked miserable. 

“You really don’t like this place,” Nergal observed.

“I are watching a child die on the fourth floor. On the eighth, an artist and musician who hurted no one and spreaded love and gentleness are getting the worst news of her life. The troll in the corner suite a floor below have not been visited in five months. Shall I continuing?”

Nergal turned Brynjar gently around, and enfolded him in an embrace that was tight in some places and very delicate in others. 

The top floor was carpeted, but not very extravagantly. They went to a corner office, and Váli knocked. 

The door opened, and a cracked, tremulous voice said, “Come in.”

Behind a desk sat an ancient woman in ragged brown robes, her snow-white hair hanging loose around a face deeply seamed with wrinkles. She sorted through papers with gnarled hands covered in age spots. 

She squinted up at the three men with a sparkle in her dark eyes. “Gods! You’re free to take a look around, gentlemen. Everything is by the rules.”

But Nergal and Váli went to one knee before her, and Brynjar made the attempt, managing to lower himself only when Nergal offered an arm. “My Lady,” they said, as one.

She rose with an audible creak. Propping herself up with a stick that appeared to be made of driftwood she shuffled out from behind her desk and stood in front of Brynjar. “You’re new.”

“I are Brynjar Kvam, my Lady.”

She cackled. “Well met, Brynjar Kvam.” She held her arms open. “Can a handsome young man like yourself spare a kiss for a repulsive old hag?”

“Of courses.” With the help of his own walking stick and Nergal, he heaved himself to his feet. “Alas, I fear I sees none around. In the meantime, I wouldst rather attend to the beautiful woman before me.”

He embraced her, and kissed her, and seemed to pay no mind to the change in her height as she grew from a wizened crone to an unblemished maiden with copper-coloured hair and milk-white skin and roses in her cheeks, resplendent in white silk. 

Finally she drew back. “Mr. Kvam,” she said, a little breathlessly, her voice warm and musical, “I think you and I are going to be friends.”

“That wouldst please me greatly, my Lady.”

Nergal cleared his throat. “Brig, we were hoping to ask you some questions about the Iron Wars.”

“Figures.” She bounded up to sit crosslegged on the desk, arranging her voluminous skirts around her. “You couldn’t just _bring_ me a pretty man.”

“My brother and I, and my human cousins, has been targeted most nefariously,” Brynjar explained. “The magic used on us have been white, bright, blinding, dazzling. I are told that it are likely grimmurgaldur.”

Brighid pressed her lips together. “I’ve been seeing more of it around,” she murmured. “I used to be able to go entire centuries without even a glimmer, but in the past couple of years its pattern has turned up four times in kids with malignant precocity.”

Váli froze. “You think children managed to duplicate grimmurgaldur?”

Brighid dismissed the thought with a wave of her hand. “Of course not. The kids are powerful, not sophisticated--isn’t that the point of malignant precocity? I think the parents are trying to use it in shields, from what I hear, and that’s a problem, but no one will talk to my people about it. Grimmurgaldur takes acres of power, yes, but years and years and years of advanced training and weeks of work to weave the seeds of it. There are only a handful of people in all of Scandinavia who still know how, and of them, I doubt all of them can still do it.”

“Nevertheless, it would stand to reason that we’re looking for one of them,” Nergal said.

“I know who you should talk to, then,” Brighid said. “Best I go with you, though. She gets funny ideas in her head sometimes.” 

“Couldst she be who we look for?” Brynjar asked.

Brighid burst out laughing. “Una? My teeth, no! Una’s as gentle as a snowflake, and by this time, nigh as delicate.”

“Snowflakes has killed a lot of people,” Brynjar protested.

Váli grinned. “I remember Una. She was ancient when I met her, and that was a thousand years ago.”

“She’s a bit...funny,” Brighid said, “but she means well.”

“Funny?” Brynjar echoed.

“I don’t know, maybe she’s mellowed in her old age. But her mother died at the beginning of the Iron Wars--it may well have been Danu’s death that _made_ the wars into the Iron Wars. Una took her mother’s place at the head of the Fae armies, and she knew her strategy and her combat and her command well enough, but she went from a very sheltered youth to having an army of thousands hanging on her every word, and she’s never quite gotten over that.”

Váli snorted. “ _That_ explains a lot. I remember her at a revel, telling me all about the way the world worked with absolute rock-solid conviction, even though most of what she was saying was rubbish.”

“Well, she means well,” Brighid reiterated with a sigh, “and she’s very well versed in the weaving of grimmurgaldur. She’ll know the names of the other practitioners, and whether anyone is missing seed crystals.” She glanced over her shoulder at the paperwork. “All of this can wait. Do I need a coat?”

Brynjar looked up through the roof. “The sky lowers. The weather threatens. Precautions are well taken.”

***

Sleipnir scrambled to her full height as Brighid approached. With her two front legs spread wide in the air in front of her, she crossed the other six, and lowered her head in reverence.

“Well met, My Lady,” Brighid said, mirroring the curtsey as best she could with only two legs before mounting.

“My understanding, Brynjar,” Nergal rumbled as he climbed onto Sleipnir’s back behind her, “is that another time, that kiss back there would have made you master of all of Tara.”

Brynjar, accepting a careful hand up from Nergal and a boost from Váli, shook his head. “I haved to cancel Tuesday’s post-show drinks with Tara, pleading infirmity. And I has no wish to kiss and tell, but that are very far from my understanding of our relationship.”

“How do you _do_ that?” Váli murmured, settling behind him. 

“You imagines the other person’s lips as your favourite flavouring of ice cream,” Brynjar explained. 

“No, I mean... you were lonely when I met you, and now you’re... not.”

“The Queen of Air and Darkness,” Nergal said, “taught him the art of seduction.”

“Ohhhhhh, Mab,” Brighid chuckled.

“More accurately, she teached me how to recognize that a person is willing to be seduced by me, so I know whom to asks.” The distance was short, but in the middle of the afternoon it made sense to take the old roads, just to stay out of sight. “Say they yes, then I peer into their heart’s delight, and know therefrom what will sweeping them off their feet.”

“I imagine word of mouth helps a lot,” Váli said. 

“Sight of butt doesn’t hurt either,” Brighid replied airily.

Váli cleared his throat. “You _need_ the seed crystals for grimmurgaldur, don’t you? There’s no way to work it without them.”

“A seed crystal in range, and a glyph,” Brighid agreed. “I seem to remember there was another layer of security on it...”

Sleipnir whuffled. “A double-sided glyph,” Brynjar said. “How does--? Oh, I sees. It are set by the keeper of the crystals and shared with the operator. The magic from the crystals goes not through to the operator unless it matches the glyph set by the keeper.”

“Yes, that’s it,” Brighid said. “That way you never had to bring the seed crystals to the front lines and risk the humans getting hold of them. And if the orders changed, whether the new ones got through by skrib or not, the keeper could change the glyph. It was very dangerous magic, it would have been disastrous if those seed crystals had gotten into the wrong hands, but the failsafes were quite ingenious.”

Sleipnir stepped off the old roads and into the Botanical Gardens.

“What would the seed crystal had done in human hands?” Brynjar asked as the others helped him dismount. Besides his need to understand grimmurgaldur, some of his best friends were humans, and they were in danger too.

Sleipnir neighed warningly. 

“The glyph would let you project the pattern from the seed crystal wherever you needed it,” Brighid explained. “Things would crystallize for a little while, until the magic wore off, and as long as you had the crystals, the glyph, and a bit of magic of your own, you could cast indefinitely. But the seed crystal itself... if you took it out of its wards, it would crystallize whatever it hit. When Neit fell, the humans captured the seed crystal he had with him, and took it to Fintan’s Grave. We had to fold half of Tul Tuinde out of space entirely, because the crystals were chewing up the countryside. There were no survivors. Or they all survived, if you like, frozen in that moment, and if there’s a way to get them unstuck we haven’t found it yet.”

Sleipnir snorted, and picked her way from tree to tree. She crouched to let them dismount next to a lilac hedge behind which, Brynjar’s grey eye saw, the grimmurgaldur shone fiercely. “I hopes not to be long,” Brynjar murmured softly. 

She bit his ear, and gave him a look.

***

Una checked the spell again. Vegard’s consort, every bit as beautiful and gracious as an elven maiden, had taken the bottle in, but it was just sitting there. Over water, and that was all she could get from it. She wondered what that meant. Maybe she should have used something a little less polite. They’d understand, when they heard. But where on Earth _were_ they?

A delicate clearing of the throat made her open her eyes. Erling stood in the entrance to the bower. “Milady? There are, um… _gods_ to see you, and one of them--”

“Gods?” Confusion gave way to elation and relief. They must have heard! “This is fantastic, Erling! Show them in at once.”

“But one of them looks like--”

“In a moment, Erling; we mustn’t--”

His voice was tight and desperate. “It’s Kvam! I don’t think he recognized my voice, but--” 

“Erling,” she said, letting her voice turn hard and imperious because really this was beyond the pale, “do me the kindness of not interrupting me. I don’t care who he is; he is a god, and not to be kept waiting.” 

Erling left, and returned leading the visitors. Brighid was looking well, even radiant. Váli looked less haggard than the last time she’d seen him, and that pinched look was gone from his face. She’d heard that he had a new project, and it obviously agreed with him. There was Nergal. Well, she wasn’t racist. And now, now she saw what Erling had been trying to warn her about. There was no time, there was no _time._ She cupped one hand over the other, mouthed the few words she thought she’d never say again, and twisted her ring nervously.

He saw her too, and knew her. His face blanched, and he started plucking at Nergal’s sleeve. 

She inclined her head. “Gentlemen! Milady! You honour me with your presence.” She descended from her throne, clasping Brynjar’s shoulder, and then Nergal’s, and then Brighid’s.

“Una,” Váli said, and the lightness in his tone gave her hope, “we’re hoping you can help us with something. You know grimmurgaldur better than anyone still living. Someone’s been using it… to…” He turned around, perhaps because he knew something was wrong, or perhaps only because he wanted to indicate his wronged comrade, and froze. “Una?”

“I’m sorry, Váli,” she said. “It’s for a good cause, I promise.” And then she touched him with the seed crystal set into her ring, just as she had done with the others. 

“Milady,” Erling said in a small voice.

This was a terrible use of seed crystals, but she didn’t see how she could have gotten them to hold still long enough for the glyph. “I apologize, Erling,” she said, twisting her ring back the right way around. Even if she could remember the shortcuts it was going to take all afternoon to redo that ward. “I should have listened to you.”

“Milady, those were _gods_.”

He was right. This would not be looked upon favourably. “I started with the changeling,” she sighed, “but the other two looked so _alarmed_.” 

“But he was one too. He was a god, and I tied him up and threw him and his brother in the harbour. To drown.”

“Calm down, Erling. Deep breaths. It’s not the same thing. Váli, Nergal, Brighid, they’ve all been here for thousands of years. Brynjar is just made up. It’s not the same at all.”

“They all look the same from here.”

“He’s gone now,” Una soothed. “He won’t be able to bother you.”

There was a sudden scream of fury, and Sleipnir galloped into the room, rearing up on six legs over Una, who put out a hand. The horse knocked her to the ground and then froze, still rearing.

Erling rushed to help Una up. She jerked her hands away, and then held up the one without the ring, very carefully, for him to assist her. 

When he’d gotten her to her feet without crystallizing either of them, she stood in silence for a moment, contemplating the divine. “This means we can’t afford to be patient any longer,” she said. “Careful, dear, don’t touch them.” She wove a temporary ward, but decided against the full one because if it had come to this, she might need the crystals again soon. “The revealing has to be a _fait accompli_ before they’re missed. We have to move. Who else can we call on?”

“I’ll put out feelers,” Erling promised, and pulled out his phone. He started thumbing through the Faebook group, looking for someone they’d helped, someone who owed them a favour.

***

The afternoon meeting with the accountant was running long, and the brothers had just texted their wives to let them know so when something struck the window. Everyone looked up, looked at each other to verify that that had just happened, and went back to the spreadsheets.

“A bird,” said the accountant.

“Poor thing,” Vegard murmured. “Wait, line 144...”

Then it happened again. 

Bård went to the window. “Got to get a plastic owl,” he said. Then he looked down, to see if he could see the two little broken-necked bodies on the pavement, and saw, instead, a pair of large black birds perched on the window sill. One croaked at him, and jerked its head.

“I... think it wants me to go outside,” Bård said. 

The accountant was giving them a Look.

“A friend of ours, um, has them,” Vegard explained.

Now the birds were giving them a Look. 

“I mean,” he amended hastily, “they have him.”

“Crows,” the accountant said, with great gravitas, “have your friend.”

“Ravens,” Vegard corrected. “You can tell by the tails.”

“Can we just go out for a moment?” Bård sighed. “Just to look?”

She put down her pencil, looking aggrieved. “ _Why?_ ”

“Probable caws?” Vegard said.

She sighed and closed her book with a snap. “Fine. I don’t mind staying a little longer to work these things out with you, but if you’re not going to take it seriously, I’d really rather be watching _Poirot_ anyway.”

“No no no no no,” Vegard said, patting the air in a placating gesture, and Bård came back to the table. They hunkered down over the numbers and ignored further taps and croaks, and eventually the taps and croaks stopped.

***

Bredrygg shuffled up the narrow tree-lined lane, uncomfortably warm, her stomach in knots. She didn’t want to be in trouble again, but Her Ladyship had asked this one small favour, for a good cause she said, and how could Bredrygg refuse her after all she’d done for poor Lynhender?

Not that Bredrygg herself stood to benefit. She supposed it was good and right for the others to be able to come out of hiding, but biology was biology. Trolls would still turn to stone in direct sunlight, and even being out in the afternoon like this, even in deep shade, even with her parasol, made her feel leaden and fatigued. 

A message, Her Ladyship had said, just a message, and to a human. Not even a breath of scandal about it. But she’d heard what had happened to Tom Trussel and Jaecael Audael Rhadiel. Maybe this should be it. Maybe she should ask Her Ladyship to take back her magic, and have done with it. It wasn’t just _this_. Lynhender wasn’t blowing up her toys anymore, or sending her mashed goat zooming across the room, but she wasn’t playing, either. Bredrygg tried to think of the last time she’d heard her laugh. Months, she realized with a chill. Lynhender just sat there. Or stood there, if Bredrygg asked her to stand.

“I miss my daughter,” Bredrygg said softly.

The trees opened out ahead of her. She tripped a ward, a gentle one that simply whispered, _We value our privacy; please be courteous._ She wrapped her enormous arms around herself. She would be courteous, of course she would.

And then the road gave onto a large field of purple flowers and a grand old red house. This was the home of one of their champions. He just needed to be given a little nudge. A little nudge, and her job would be done, her duty discharged. She could thank Her Ladyship for the help and return no more, and get Lynhender back. She could congratulate her fellow creatures on their unveiling, having done her part.

The human who opened the door when she pressed the bell was a vision of golden loveliness. “Hello?” she said, pleasantly enough, although there was an undercurrent of wariness in her voice.

“I seek the master of this house,” Bredrygg said politely. The human raised an eyebrow. Then she thought back to the human television she’d seen and, feeling rude and artificial, asked, “Is Vegard there, please?”

“I’m sorry,” the human said with a smile, “He’s not here. He’s working late tonight. May I have your name, and I’ll tell him you were here?”

Bredrygg took a step back. “I… I’m no one. I just… I am to urge him to take up the bottle.”

“The bottle,” the human echoed with a frown. “What do you know about that?”

“Nothing! I am to urge him to take it up. Time grows short. The need is great.” She looked down at this brave, regal wisp of a human, and could stand it no longer. She turned on her heel and lumbered back across the yard with the purple flowers, down the lane, and back to her little cave in Ekebergskraningen, where Lynhender sat unmoving, unspeaking, dreadfully well behaved.

***

Helene watched the whey-faced woman with the unkempt hair and the absurdly large patio umbrella turn and run. Curious thing: with every two of her running steps, the ground shook slightly.

She pulled out her phone, and texted Vegard that there had been someone there to see him.

In the birch tree nearby, two ravens were having what sounded like a very loud argument. If she could have understood them, she would have heard one saying that to stay would be playing right into her hands. The other demanded to know, who else they could call upon to fix this? And the first thought that fixing it was rather too much to expect. But Helene, never having learned to speak raven, understood none of it.

***

The accountant left after another half hour, business conducted. Bård hoped she could catch the end of _Poirot_ , at least. They watched her get into her car and drive off, counted to ten, and bolted through the darkened office and down the stairs, out to the parking lot.

Huginn and Muninn were gone. 

Vegard pulled out his phone and thought about how much they needed to get hold of Brynjar. Through the link he felt Bård thinking it too. But their phones stayed silent.

“Do you feel okay?” Bård demanded.

“A little... uncomfortable.” Vegard waggled his hand back and forth expressively. “The last time something like this happened...” He had an idea, suddenly, and ran back up the stairs for his bottle of Pepsi Max, and brought it back down. The last time something had happened to Brynjar, Fenrir had used the Pepsi to get his attention, but now there was nothing reflected in it. He sang a bit of “I Can See for Miles” to cast a scrying spell, and asked it to show him Fenrir. There was nothing, but he wasn’t really surprised. He’d always been lousy at the scrying spell, and had no idea how to make it hop the worlds to Asgard. He asked it to show him Brynjar instead. 

“Lightning,” Bård said, his chin tilting up. He squinted as he scanned the cloudless sky.

“Sorry,” Vegard said. “I think it was my drink.” He undid the lid, to get a better look, and it foamed and fountained over both of them.

When it had calmed down, he pulled his phone out of his pocket, to make sure it hadn’t gotten wet. There was a text from Helene. “Take up the bottle?” he murmured as he read. He looked at the dripping plastic bottle in his hand. 

“The bottle from the woman who told you Brynjar was dead.”

“Obviously,” Vegard agreed. “She--Helene--doesn’t think I should do it.”

“Neither do I,” Bård said.

“Me neither. But I’m pretty sure Brynjar’s in trouble. We can’t get hold of him or Finn. I feel like, I feel like we have to do something. And I don’t want it to be a not smart thing, but I don’t have all of the information.”

“Melantha has a baby at home,” Bård said slowly. “What about Jessalyn? She's handy with a hammer, and she'll want to save her cohosts.”

“Only if there's no one else,” Vegard said. “It's easier now that they've got a gang of writers, but she's still run ragged. I called her yesterday to see if she'd need me next week, and she was like...” He ran his fingers through his hair until it was a wild fluffy halo, and mimed waving his arms and screaming.

“Hm,” Bård said, eyes narrowing thoughtfully. “Henning.”

“Henning?” 

“He's the only one who’s mixed up in this who we can actually get to. And he wants to help, doesn’t he?”

“Where he can,” Vegard agreed. “I don’t think he knows anything.”

“And what he does know, he can't tell us,” Bård sighed. He leaned against the building, pressing his cheek to the brown bricks. “Well then, I'm out of ideas.”

“I think we could still go to him,” Vegard said. “I don't know if he could help, but we have to do something, and...” He shrugged and said, a little sheepishly, “he might like that we thought of him.”

***

Three hours later, with the sun a bit lower in the sky, the brothers met each other on the steps of Wulverhuset. Vegard had gone back to his house, had dinner with his family, and told Helene what he was up to before retrieving the bottle from the boathouse. He’d told her not to worry, and told himself that if he didn’t want that to have been a lie, he would just have to be careful. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Suggested musical pairing: Haywyre's "Synergy" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prp6VvryTX4


	12. Brilliance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An empty cage / Caster's remorse / Land sighted on the wine-dark sea / Two cups of cocoa / Polyphemus / Brynjar screams / And screams

Vegard had the bottle in the original silk wrappings with rubber bands wound around them, and the bundle was in a cloth bag, which in turn was in a messenger bag that he’d slung over his shoulder. When the tram deposited his brother on the corner, and Bård came jogging easily up the stairs of Wulverhuset, Vegard asked, “Are you ready?”

Bård gave him a short, sharp nod. Beneath it, Vegard saw, was a tearful moment with Maria, and a struggle to keep his composure while saying goodnight to the kids, and Vegard looked away then, but he squeezed Bård’s shoulder on their way in. 

Henning had been told to expect them. A monk conducted them downstairs. “We don’t know how much longer we can keep him,” she told them. “We’re not really equipped to keep a lucid, cooperative person caged for extended periods, and we’re going to need that space for more urgent cases soon.”

“We understand,” Bård said, a little huskily. “We’re doing everything we can.”

Henning was curled up on his bed, reading a Harry Potter book. He uncurled and lit up when they came into view. “I’m so glad you’re here,” he said as the monk let them in. “The other people who come and stay down here, they aren’t so talkative. How can I help?”

Vegard put on some leather gloves, and drew the bundle out of the messenger bag. “Someone gave this to my wife, to give to me. We think it’s the person who is behind all of this.”

“It’s filled with the same stuff that Brynjar was tracking before Ida stabbed him,” Bård added.

Vegard took the elastic bands off and carefully unwrapped the bottle, keeping the silk between him and it at all times. He hunched over it, trying to keep it between the three of them, but behind them, someone let out a howl, and the others took it up. 

“No,” Henning said, eyeing it. “Not filled with it. Shielded by it. I remember this stuff. Not much, only the brightness. But one of the things it does is shield. It goes on the outside, so you can’t see what’s inside.”

“So... what might be inside, then?” Bård asked softly.

“There’s only one way to find out,” Henning said, his tone grim. He set his mouth and reached for the bottle. 

Both brothers cried out, and Bård was quick enough to grab Henning’s arm just as his hand touched the cut glass, and Vegard was quick enough to grab Bård just as the light swallowed all three of them.

Fifteen minutes later, a novice came down the stairs. The howling had mercifully ceased, but so had the noises of conversation. Often residents were distraught or guilt-ridden after visits, so she wanted to make sure that Henning was all right, and see whether he needed anything. But the cage was empty and still locked, and the novice rolled her eyes, because they’d taken him on an outing without signing him out, and that sort of thing caused no end of paperwork.

***

Bård drew in a great gasp as he tumbled to the ground. Next to him, Vegard rolled and landed flat on his back with a shout.

Henning was beside them. He’d let out a little _whuff_ as he’d hit the ground, but made no other noise as he drew himself up, eyes fixed on a point behind them. He was very, very still. 

They were on grass, but not grass, in a shaded glade that wasn’t a shaded glade. It didn’t feel right. The light was afternoon light, for one thing.

“It’s an elven bower,” Vegard murmured, shedding his gloves and running a hand along the grassy floor. 

“Quite so, gentlemen,” a voice said. Bård and Vegard spun. A golden-haired elven woman, clearly ancient but still beautiful, sat on a throne on a blossom-covered dais. “Welcome to Hagefestning. I am your hostess, Una Fairhair. Be merry and of good heart.”

“Bård,” Bård said automatically, keeping his tone neutral.

“Vegard,” Vegard said. He gestured at the bottle on the ground beside them. “You translated us. That’s a lot of magic. But sneaky.”

She inclined her head. “My apologies for the subterfuge. I needed to speak with you.”

“Our manager’s name is Jørgen,” Bård said. “You can e-mail him. I know it’s an extra step, but it’s simpler than creating stabby copies of celebrities and making them hurt our friends to give you the excuse to turn up on my brother’s doorstep so you can give him a magic bottle that eventually sends us here.”

She drew herself up. “You needn’t mock me, young man. The changelings weren’t for _your_ benefit.” She indicated Henning with a little flourish. “I'd hoped that he might succeed where you two initially refused to even try. The others were from previous iterations of this project. They got away from me, the silly things, and set me back years, but I wasn’t going to waste them. Now we’re on track again, and just in the nick of time.”

“And what is this project?” Vegard asked.

“One I’m sure you’ll find worthy,” she said sweetly, and leaned forward. “If you could change one thing about the magical world, gentlemen, what would that be?” They started to answer, and she held up a hand. “Seriously, now.”

They subsided. After a moment of silence, Bård said, “I guess--if it was up to us--we'd like to see more equality. Between the... the types.” 

“We’d make the Fair Folk a bit fairer,” Vegard added with a disarming grin.

Una's eyes had lit up. “And how would you do that?” she demanded. 

They looked at each other. “We’re not really the ones who should decide, but better representation for the svartalfar and Underjordiske in government and media?” Vegard ventured.

“But everyone’s equal,” she said. “It’s the law.”

“Just because it says something on paper…” Bård began.

“Look,” Vegard said.

“…doesn’t mean…”

“Shut up,” Vegard said to him. To Una, he said, “Look, we could guess all night. Why don’t you just tell us what you're planning?”

She inclined her head, and steepled her fingers. “It began with the Iron Wars, gentlemen. To save ourselves, the elves took the light that was our art and our play, and sculpted it into a weapon that casts its shadow over our people even today. To my shame, I spoke for it. I helped put it into place. Now I would see it undone. Faerie has become a sore, festering under cover of glamour. I would open it up, and drain the poison.”

“Which means…” Bård prompted.

“No more mass compulsory concealment,” she said, as if he should have known. “Small personal illusions, certainly, but no more hiding from humans.”

“Aren’t you worried about what humans will do?” Vegard asked. 

“Ah! That’s been tricky, but that’s where you come in. The Prime Minister is your townswoman. You're going to make her listen to you. If you can just convince her, that would be best. But if she won’t… well, I gather you’ve seen. We’ve got a new Prime Minister waiting in the wings.”

“ _Huh?_ ” Vegard shrilled.

“What makes you think that Erna Solberg will listen to us?” Bård demanded.

She frowned. “You’ve had dealings before. Is there bad blood between you and the people of Bergen?”

“They didn’t like us moving to Oslo, but...” Bård shook his head, and spread his fingers in a calming gesture. “I just, I think that you’re getting this wrong on a lot of levels. The Norwegian Prime Minister doesn’t speak for all of humanity, to be able to assure the Samkoma that it’s okay to drop glamour. It’s not okay. She’s not going to be able to make humans suddenly okay with seeing pixies and gnomes and djinn and ghouls and trolls wandering around downtown Oslo; she’s not going to be able to stop some of them from freaking out or grabbing their guns. And even if she did have that kind of power, she wouldn’t listen to us about something this huge.”

“You hail from her home city, and your names are known,” she said. 

“Yeah, as comedians. Tricksters,” Bård said. “She probably wouldn’t even believe us. Even if she would, I’m not convinced we should tell her what you want us to tell her. Dropping glamour would affect an awful lot of people, and literally none of them are us.” 

“You don’t care about the Underjordiske and the svartalfar, living their sad little lives in obscurity under the thumb of the Bright Court?”

“Sure we do, but no one ever told us their problem was _glamour_ ,” Vegard said.

“That really seems more like a Bright Court problem,” Bård added.

“They never say so because they don’t remember a time before glamour,” Una countered. “It’s just a fact of life to them. I was there; I led the armies in the last days of the Iron Wars. I remember the talks. We were desperate. Our magics had grown terrible. We had enlisted the help of fearsome forces, and still the rivers ran red with our blood. At the time the Great Glamouring seemed like the best, kindest thing. But the Bright Court was ever the Bright Court, you know, and with no one to check us, we have ridden roughshod over the lesser folk.”

“Maybe it would help if you stopped thinking of them as lesser folk,” Vegard said.

“We don’t know a lot about elven politics,” Bård said, “but I know the Bright Court doesn’t run things anymore; it’s the Samkoma, and it’s not perfect, but that’s who you’d take this up with; not a couple of human revyboys.”

Una’s mouth tightened. “As you said, just because something is on _paper_ doesn’t mean it is so. The Samkoma is a mere tool of the Bright Court. They’ve refused to hear me time and time again. Believe me, _I_ don’t want to sneak around like this, plotting and scheming and quietly replacing humans in power. But they give me no choice. With your help…”

“We’re not going to help,” Vegard said. “I know you think it’s right, but I don’t see it. Maybe we would after some time if we looked around, and asked some questions, and people said they actually wanted this and there were things that we could do that no one else could, but if you’re asking us now, we say no.”

“Young man, I was leading armies when your ancestors here hadn’t even figured out _mirrors_. Are you really daring to question my understanding of the situation _of my own people?_ ”

“When you think you can do what you did to Calle and our cousins? And Henning, and Ida, and Zweinar?” Bård’s voice turned hard. “I don’t trust what you think is right. You don’t do that to people.”

Confusion showed briefly on her face. “Henning and Ida and… Oh, _them_. I wouldn’t ever do that to _people_ ,” she said. “I am truly sorry about your friend, but you had rebuffed all my gentler efforts, and I reasoned perhaps he’d have some of your skills. I was desperate. The rest I did to changelings, in a time of great need.” She watched their faces, and her eyes flashed. “Ah. Humans. You see a programmed thing that walks and talks and looks like a person, and you claim not to know the difference. That’s a bit hypocritical, don’t you think, considering the illustrious Mr. Kvam? I _know_ how you make changelings into gods, and it’s not with too much coffee.”

“Although too much coffee does really impressive things to him,” Vegard said.

She smiled gently. “I think it’s admirable that you care about their lives. And it works out for me, because now I can say, you will talk to people in power, who your human Prime Minister will listen to. You will tell them magic is real, and it is all around them. You will _show_ them. You will make them heed you. Because if you do not, my project fails, and if my project fails, I have no more use for my tools, however carefully I have fashioned them.”

“I think that’s extortion, isn’t it?” Vegard said.

“If you must. To me, it looks strikingly like the only path to justice.”

Bård and Vegard exchanged a panicked look. : _Better agree,_ : Vegard thought.

: _Agree. We’ll work it out later, right?_ :

“I guess…” Bård began.

“You’ve got us,” Vegard sighed. 

“Who would your Prime Minister listen to?” Una demanded. “Be honest now.”

“Scientists,” Vegard said. “We hope, anyway.”

“Then we’ll find you some.” Una pulled out an iPhone, and delicately typed. “Oh!” Her face lit up, and she turned the screen towards them. “Tell me it was not foreordained! Tell me that the threads of destiny have not converged on this place, on this time, on us three.” 

She had searched “human scientists in Oslo.” Vegard read off the screen. “‘Universitetet i Oslo presents Unseen Worlds: A Conference for the Social Sciences and the Humanities.’ It’s tomorrow.” 

“It’s got science, and humanity, and unseen worlds,” Una said triumphantly. 

The men exchanged another long look. : _I don't think that is what she thinks it is,_ : Vegard thought.

: _No. But I think we can work with it._ : Aloud, Bård said, “We’ll get Jørgen to call them and book us.” He pulled out his phone.

“No,” she said, starting out of her throne. She stretched out a hand, and the screen on Bård's phone went black. “You will call no one.”

“There are procedures for this sort of thing,” Vegard said. “If we don’t follow them, we’re likely to be thrown out.”

“No calls,” she said. “You’re Ylvis. Erling showed me what you can do. I think he was trying to talk me out of recruiting you, but I knew that in the right hands, your wit and wile could be a powerful force for good. And I know that you can talk your way into anything.”

“True,” Bård said. “But we’ll at least need tonight to prepare what we’re going to tell people.”

Her eyes narrowed. “You will stay here, with me. Spend tonight how you like, but I know you’re too good at improvisation to need the time.”

Vegard laughed incredulously. “What do you expect us to do, have people shout genres from the audience, and then we have to make a screamo metal song about how magic is real and the Fae want to join up with us again?”

“We know what we can improvise,” Bård said, “and we know what we need to rehearse. We’re professionals. And if you want us to make an announcement that is going to change reality as human beings understand it, then yes, we do need some prep time.”

She shrugged. “Spend tonight how you like, then,” she said again. She flung her hand out at some of the greenery. “You can use that room for sleeping or for scheming, as the mood takes you. I'll have Erling check on you in a few hours.”

***

There was a change in the air. Calle couldn’t put his finger on it. “Do you feel... something...?”

“We’re _finally_ getting close,” Stian said. He squinted into the distance. Calle looked with him, but couldn’t see anything but the road, stretching into forever. “I think we should hurry.” Then he looked behind them. His eyes widened, his whiskers drooped, and the flowers in his lei wilted. “We should definitely hurry.”

***

: _We couldn’t just get ourselves out of here and call for help, could we?_ : Bård said, groping around in the portal. He pulled up a copy of _Plane and Pilot_ , and put it back. A trio of beanbags. Getting closer... He got a handful of fabric, but it was a Maxbo t-shirt. And then... yes! Scarves.

“No,” Vegard said aloud shortly, wearily, and fell silent. Bård didn’t press him. He could feel that it was all Vegard could do to keep that one tiny portal open. If he let it close on Bård’s arm, there was about a seventy-five percent chance that it would just push his arm out, and a twenty-five percent chance that it would take the arm with it. 

The portal drew shut with a noise like the end of a recording. One of the scarves fluttered to the ground, a neat slice taken out of the corner.

“I’m done with that,” Vegard said, voice cracking with fatigue.

“You’re done with that,” Bård agreed. 

The bit of greenery Una had shown them proved to be a sizeable room. There were two very comfortable beds, a sitting area, and what appeared to be a full bathroom. They heard no sounds other than the susurrus of the wind in the leaves and the trickle of water, but it would be silly to think that any spoken conversation in Hagefestning would be private. Bård crouched in a leafy corner, Vegard hunched over on a chair woven of living lilac. : _We’ve got a hat and scarves and an idea. We can do what she said without putting people in danger or causing major upheavals, and then she has to keep her part of the bargain. We can make this work._ :

: _Where’s Brynjar, though? I can see him not wanting to leave Finn, but he must know we need him._ : Vegard’s thoughts grew dark and fretful. : _Unless my visitor last Saturday kept trying until..._ : The thought trailed off. 

“No,” said Bård, squeezing Vegard’s shoulder. : _If Brynjar died, I think I’d feel it. We both would, probably. I feel something, I know something’s not right and that’s probably what’s keeping him away, but he’s alive._ :

Branches rustled, and leaves parted. Bård scrambled to his feet. A dark-haired elf stepped in, bearing a tray with two mugs and a plate of cookies. “I’m Erling,” he said. “Don’t worry, they’re not poisoned or anything. I just thought you might want some refreshment.”

Eyeing the elf carefully, Vegard picked up a mug, and took a sip. His face twisted in revulsion, and after swallowing he did a full-body shudder. Erling’s eyes got very large. “ _Coffee_ ,” Vegard explained with a grimace.

“Oh! Right. Hell, I forgot. I’ll be back.” Erling handed Vegard the tray of cookies, and took the mugs, disappearing in a twitch of leaves.

When Erling was gone, Vegard closed his eyes and leaned back. Bård took one of the other chairs, and practiced changing the colours of the scarves at the tap of a finger. It took some doing, to sync them up. 

The elf returned a few minutes later, with two more mugs. “Cocoa with soy milk?” he said hopefully. “I couldn’t remember which one of you takes it, so I did both.”

Bård tasted. “Thank you,” he said, taking both mugs and prodding Vegard’s hand with the one he hadn’t drunk from. Vegard half opened his eyes, and took a sip. “Good,” he said with a smile that was more a contraction of facial muscles than a genuine expression. “Thanks.”

“I know what you’re probably thinking about Una right now,” Erling said, “but she’s... she’s not so bad. She’s just old-fashioned, and used to getting her way.”

“I’m sure that other than the kidnapping and enslavement and attempted murder she’s a very nice person,” Bård sighed, “but this, what she’s doing, isn’t right.”

Vegard cracked an eye open. “Are you a svartalfr?”

“One eighth,” Erling said, and something in his expression had turned guarded.

“Do _you_ think the problem with the world is glamour?”

“ _Oh._ Um.” Erling leaned back against the leafy wall. “I think,” he said carefully, “that it will be a massive change. And the things about our world that need to change will have no choice but to be affected by it.” He fell silent, but both brothers kept watching him expectantly. And finally he said, much more softly, “If you’re asking me personally if it’s the most efficient way to solve our problems, I don’t think it is, and it might make things even worse. I mean, I’m not, don’t think I’m, I have nothing against humans, but if you try to outlaw a fellow human for having a bit of cloth on her head, what are you going to do to us? Not... not you two personally, but...”

“We know what you mean,” Bård said.

“I think we agree,” Vegard said. “So, you want to help us?”

Erling made a face. “Look, I know. Okay. I know, I’m... I’m being... But she’s been really good to me, and I need this job. And sometimes, not this time obviously, but sometimes she listens to me. Besides, she still has the changelings and your friend. And even if you got them out, the ones she made she can take down from anywhere, so you’d be free and they’d be screwed. And so would I.”

“I meant, can you get us some equipment for our demonstration tomorrow?” Vegard amended.

“Oh, that? Yeah! Make me a list!”

When he was gone, ducking behind the leaves again, Vegard sent Bård a memory. Bård hadn’t recognized the face, but Erling had been driving the van that took Brynjar and Finn away. Before that, he had been a wolf among sheep.

***

Una let the main part of her bower darken until it was nearly full night, and sent a summons along the old roads.

A portion of her chamber greyed out. The gangari flattened itself into a puddle of light, and rose again unbidden. A breach of protocol, but nobody cared anymore. “My Lady.”

“I need you to retrieve my guest. I have the brothers, and they have reluctantly agreed to provide the help I asked for.”

“I know his location, but he is still guarded by the beast.”

Una frowned. “This is no mere beast, then.”

“It is a cat, many times the size of an ordinary cat, the colour of bloodstained snow, that walks on its hind legs and talks like a man.”

“I see. Who commands it?”

“It claims no master and no name.”

“I see,” Una said darkly. “And neither has it devoured him?”

“They walk together as companions.”

“Can you kill it?” she asked.

“I have tried,” said the gangari. 

“Please, try again. If the brothers honour their bargain, I want to be able to restore their friend to them.”

“I am not certain that I can.”

“Do your best, then.”

***

There was despair, and there was prudently waiting for circumstances to change instead of spending one’s energy on fruitless struggling, and the tiny part of Brynjar that could still fret about the difference hoped he was engaged in the latter.

Change he could have weathered, even painful change. Change was what the universe was made of. This was _stasis_. His body was frozen. His thoughts were frozen. He had remembered only belatedly what Finn had said about diving down, finding the place where it couldn’t touch you, and he’d been too late. It was unbearable, nothing could survive like this, except that death was change too.

His eardrum didn’t vibrate at their voices in the next room, and his brain didn’t process the signals, and his poor frozen rootlets didn’t quiver, but somehow, the part of him that was still Brynjar knew when his cousins were there. Marshalling the last of his resources, he embraced the light that filled his head, and even as it turned his thoughts into jagged shards of brilliance, he broadcasted a wordless, thoughtless scream of warning and agony and rage.

***

Bård, practicing with the hat that Erling had brought them, felt the pressure change in his ears. Suddenly everything was muted, and the only sound that was clear was something like an electrical whine, like the noise a lightbulb makes just before it burns out.

A hand fell on his shoulder, and Vegard was peering anxiously into his face. “Are you okay?” 

The pressure equalized. “Yeah,” Bård said. “I think... have we got this, yet?” He pulled out his phone for the seventh or eighth time that night, but it was still dead. They both were.

“I think... the amount of better we could get if we kept going would be cancelled out by the amount of worse we’d get from not sleeping.” Vegard blinked a couple of times, and rubbed his face. “Did that make sense?”

“Probably not, but I understood it.” They arranged their props in a small pile by the door, and fell onto the beds. Bård was asleep in seconds and dreamed of the noise, and in his dream it was the whine of a mosquito trapped in amber.

Both of them were exhausted. Pinpoints of light, blossoming in the wall with a miniscule crackling noise, did not stir their slumber.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Suggested musical pairing: Scylla's "Helen's Face" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVcXl1ih8FQ


	13. Unseen Worlds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sigrid drinks a Red Bull / Nobody wins / Una reflects / Just smile and nod / Ylvis: A Conference Presentation / A flower crown

Sigrid Myhre had had six hours of sleep in the past three days. She’d written out her opening remarks on the tram on the way over, but she was thinking of just handing them over to Jean-Guy. Her paper, a Brechtian analysis of _The Master and Margarita_ , was one thing: it wouldn’t matter so much if she just put her brain on autopilot and read off the page. But the opening remarks would set the tone for the conference. They had to be personable, inviting, and, well, minimally coherent.

“Jean-Guy?” she said.

He looked up from where he’d been setting up the registration table, frowned, and held a finger up, indicating that she should wait a minute. He rooted around in his messenger bag, and pulled out a Red Bull. “You need this more than I do. You’re green around the eyes.”

“Thank you,” she breathed, and took three big gulps before she’d thought much about it. Her wife had patted her awake, sat her up in bed, and handed her a coffee cup this morning. She’d had another after getting out of the shower. The night before, one at about one AM because her fingers had been getting silly as she typed up the badges. And now this was clearly too much caffeine and too little sleep and she was hallucinating, because three of the four faculty members striding purposefully toward her, very professionally dressed, looked like those comedians from TV, no matter how many times she blinked.

“Professor...?” she said thinly, to the first one to reach her.

His smile widened in surprise. “Bård Ylvisåker,” he said, giving her a firm handshake.

“Sigrid,” she said. 

“Vegard,” Vegard said, leaning in for a handshake. The third, a slight woman, held back and did not introduce herself. Calle was the fourth, but he too hung back, with a lift of a hand and a shy smile. “Are you Dr. Myhre?” the woman asked, and there was something imperious in her tone.

“Not... yet,” Sigrid said. 

“But the conference is yours,” she pressed When Sigrid needed to take a moment to think about how to respond to this, the woman prompted, “Your name was on the call for papers, and the registration site.” 

A wide-eyed Jean-Guy passed over four lanyards and plastic-sheathed badges, two of which did indeed say “Ylvisåker” on them although she did not remember typing that at all, but she must have done because the first name on one was “Bårk,” and maybe if she kept talking no one would notice.

“I was the contact person,” she said, and her brain sputtered and kicked in again. “Just call me Sigrid. I’m... we... it’s a pleasure to have all of you here. What can I do for you?”

Something about Bård's very wide blue eyes and the way he pressed his lips together, corners turned down to keep them from twitching up, told her that he’d caught the mistake. 

“Sigrid,” Vegard said, and thank goodness she’d gotten his badge right, “we’ll donate five thousand kroner to your conference if you’ll let us have the stage for ten minutes.”

She stood blinking at him for what felt like an hour, although it must have been a few seconds. “Ummm… we... have never had this happen before. Let me talk to the rest of the organizing committee.” She turned, and came face to face with Jean-Guy. “That’s Ylvis.”

“I know. I handed them their badges. You got the blond one’s name wrong.”

“I know. Where’s Julia? They-they-they want ten minutes.”

“Wrangling with catering,” Jean-Guy said. He scanned the program, and pointed. “Here?”

“Sure. Wait. No. Hulya Osman e-mailed this morning. She couldn’t get across the border.”

“ _This_ border?”

“No, hers. I told her of course we understand. We can give them her spot. It’s in the afternoon. Only...” It occurred to her that she’d meant to ask Jean-Guy _if_ , and he had tried to answer with _when_. She turned back to the men. “What were you wanting to talk about?”

The older woman started forward. “They’re going to tell you about unseen worlds, of course. Quite in keeping with the theme of your conference.”

“Magic,” Bård said. “We’d like to show you some magic, and say a few things about it.”

“We promise to be on our best behaviour,” Vegard said, a hand over his heart, and Sigrid got the impression that he was talking to the older woman as much as to her.

Sigrid stared at her program. “Sounds like third panel would be most appropriate.”

“‘Magic and Marginality,’ Jean-Guy murmured. “And then we shove the break back a little, because the next panel is short. We’re going to put you guys at the end of the session, all right?”

“Thank you,” Bård said. He pulled out his personal chequebook. He’d had one filled out and ready to go, and he signed it and presented it to them with a little flourish. Sigrid thought that he had beautiful hands.

“We’re honoured, of course, but why do you want to perform at an academic conference?” Jean-Guy asked.

“It’s, it’s something we’re doing for a friend,” Vegard said with a disarming smile.

“Will it be filmed?” The older woman’s voice was eager.

“We do have someone,” Sigrid assured her. “Bloody hell! I should stick that into the opening remarks too.” She went off to write that in, and realized there was something in her hand. The rest of the can of Red Bull. She snagged one of the free reusable water bottles the student union had donated, and poured the rest of the can in, for safekeeping. She might need it later, while listening to the papers, but having the funniest living comedians in Norway show up to the conference she’d organized was wonderfully invigorating. Oh, and she should put _that_ in her opening remarks too...

***

Calle was neither hot nor cold. He’d been walking for what could have been a long time, and he thought fondly sometimes of his bed, but it wasn’t a need; just a thing that would be nice. Likewise, fish and chips sounded very good, or a great big frosty glass of iced tea, or a cigarette, but he wasn’t hungry or thirsty or craving a smoke. And he couldn’t be sure--his memory of the place where he’d been held was foggy--but he was pretty sure that he hadn't used a bathroom since Stian had first found him, and he could go, but he didn’t have to.

“Stian,” he said finally, still not sure he should be asking, “am I dead?”

“Pretty useless to take you back to Oslo if you are,” Stian said, with good cheer. But that was not a no, and Calle kept looking at him until he said, more soberly, “You are alive and as well as can be expected, and you’ll stay that way as long as I have anything to say about it.”

And then he went still and silent, and pressed Calle’s hand for him to do the same. 

The streak of light came out of the trees, almost too fast to see. Calle felt it grab for him, felt Stian’s arms around his waist. The little cat should have been far too light to hold him in place, but they both stayed rooted to the ground, and the harder their assailant pulled, the less purchase it seemed to be able to get, until its hold slithered away.

The next moment, Stian was slammed to the ground, hard light pinning his muzzle to the gravel as dear old whoever crouched on top of him.

“Hey!” Calle roared. “ _Hey!_ ” It didn’t look up. 

At a loss, he dropped his pants. He shouted and waved his arms and jumped up and down. The gangari turned, a look of bewilderment crossing its perfect features. That was all Stian needed to squirm out from underneath, and run to join Calle. 

“Pants up and let’s go!”

They had run perhaps three steps when the gangari sheeted back around to them, lengthening and curling in on itself to loom over Stian. “Little thing, give me this human, or I will make what is left of your sad, tiny life into the purest hell you or anyone has ever known.”

Stian’s eyes lit up. “Do you swear it?” he asked brightly.

“Oh, indeed!” Dear old whoever made a complicated sign with its hands. “I swear, with all that I have and all that I am, to make certain that you are broken and suffering, to see you hounded to misery and death, so that all the world will count your life as worthless.”

“Oh, and do you think you’ll enjoy that?” Stian goaded.

Dear old whoever smiled toothily. “I vow to delight in it.” It dropped its hands.

“Good thing for you, then,” Stian said. “Come on, Calle. Let’s go.” He took Calle’s hand, and led him around the thing on the path. 

It made no move to prevent them. “What... what did you do?”

“ _I_ didn’t do anything,” Stian said. “Like I told you--I’m nobody.”

“Nobody,” it echoed, and on its beautiful face was an almost comical expression of horror. 

“Exactly. And now you’ve sworn, under the doomsign, on the trunk of Yggdrasil itself no less, with all you have and all you are, to make certain that nobody is broken and suffering, to see nobody hounded to misery and death, so that all the world will count nobody’s life as worthless. And to delight in it. As well you should.”

The gangari’s shoulders sagged, but it managed a gentle smile. “Thank you for that.”

Stian beckoned. It bent low, and he planted a kiss on the top of its head. Then it turned and left them, walking back the way they’d come. 

Calle turned and watched him go, and returned the creature’s wave. With gentle paws, Stian shepherded him back the direction of Oslo. “That was unreasonably awesome,” Calle said.

“Um. Thanks. It felt pretty awesome. Are you okay?”

“All right.” He thought, suddenly, of the food that dear old whoever had kept promising. “Do we have anything to eat?”

Stian sounded surprised. “You’re hungry?”

“Not really. I just... I could eat.”

“Let me try something,” Stian said, and was silent for awhile. Then he turned away, and did something that made him give a little hiss of pain. He turned back and opened his hand, and offered Calle a cluster of cherries. Against the grey of the dust and the trees, they were shockingly red.

Calle scanned the sides of the road. Everything was grey, grey. “Where did you get those from?”

“Long story.”

Calle accepted a cherry. “Thanks. Should I wash them?”

“Probably, but I don’t know where.”

Calle settled for wiping it off on the front of his shirt. He put it in his mouth, chewed a couple of times, and gagged. Dropping to his knees, he spat the cherry onto the side of the road, where it glistened bright red like a jewel. He spat again and again, trying to keep his gorge from rising. “It tastes like _blood_ ,” he said. “Sorry.”

“ _I’m_ sorry,” Stian said, shoulders sagging, whiskers drooping. “I guess I can’t do it anymore.” He contemplated the remaining cherries sadly, and then unlatched one side of his suitcase, and slipped them in. Then he put a paw on Calle’s shoulder. 

Calle covered the paw with his hand for a moment, and got back to his feet. His eyes were streaming, and he wiped at them with a little laugh. “Well, mission accomplished. I’m the furthest thing from hungry.”

“Small favours,” Stian murmured, looking at the road ahead. “I think we need to hurry.”

***

Una sat rapt, waiting. She listened as the thin human with the dark circles under her eyes and vaguely distracted air cheerfully declared the conference open. She talked about magic, which made Una's ears twitch forward, but it was an abstract to them, a thing from stories. Una listened to the young person who introduced the first panel, something about criminality. She listened to humans, most of them young, most of them white, read from their papers about what they thought the world was like. She had trouble following the thread of their reasoning. They talked about notorious human evildoers, about the tales of them and why those tales were wrong. Had her advisors ever sounded like this? Had it been easier to listen to them because she had understood what they were talking about? She supposed so. But there were an awful lot of these to go. She wondered how the human prime minister managed to absorb it all. Or, come to think of it, what they expected her to do about any of it. For the first time, she began to wonder if in her desperation she’d miscalculated. But she was committed to this path, and what happened if the authorities found three frozen gods in her bower didn’t bear thinking about. She would have to make it work. She would make _them_ make it work.

***

Henning sat at one end of the row of chairs. He'd lit up, this morning, when the brothers had asked Una if they could have him along to carry their props. Erling had offered too, but she'd told him to hold the fort, and something in the way she said it made Vegard think something else was going on. Now, Vegard had been friends with Calle long enough to recognize gloom and foreboding behind Henning’s carefully neutral expression.

Una sat next to the centre aisle, looking so very interested and alert that Vegard was sure that she was faking. If she didn’t understand Norwegian humans well enough to know that these people were _not_ a way for her to weasel into the halls of power, she sure as hell didn’t understand the use of the Hegelian dialectic in extradiegetic narration in 1930s surrealist fiction well enough to be nodding along like that. 

Vegard had given up some time ago. He’d tried, at first, but it soon became clear that some people revelled in weaving dense mats of opaque language the way that freestyle rappers wove tapestries of rhyme, that they were virtuosi skilled in the art of keeping people like him out. So he let the words wash over him, and rubbed at his face to keep himself awake. 

Polite applause made him snap to attention. He started to get up, but Una clamped a hand on his wrist.

“Please,” he whispered, “it wouldn’t look good if I fell asleep in front of all these people.”

Una motioned with her hand to Henning. He slipped out of his chair, and returned during the opening of the next paper, with well sugared tea, a napkin full of orange slices, and a cherry-cheese pastry. Vegard shared them with Bård, whose eyes were closing, and thereafter gave him small continuous mental nudges until they broke for lunch.

Sigrid approached them as they stood. “We have a buffet,” she said. “Do you want to be at the head of the line with our keynote?”

“No, thank you,” Bård said smoothly. “We’ll wait our turn like everyone else. But I think Una might appreciate the chance to get settled as soon as possible.” 

“Of course,” Sigrid said. 

Bård put a hand on Henning’s shoulder. “Can you take her up? And then I think we’d like to eat outside, for the fresh air.”

Una glared. She opened her mouth to speak. “How about I do it?” Vegard suggested in a rush. He jumped to his feet, and offered her a hand. : _She won't want to let us get away from her,_ : he said as he walked up to the buffet with her on his arm. She didn't seem to need the support, but she appeared to enjoy the arm all the same.

: _I just don’t want her talking to the other people,_ : Bård thought back. : _She's got to be wondering at this point whether she’s making a mistake._ :

There was fish, and pasta salad, and bean salad, and regular salad, and something with chickpeas in it, and cheesecake. Vegard got a plate for Una, and she told him what to take. He made up a quick plate for himself, too. He tucked napkins, silverware, and drinks in the crook of one arm, let Una take the other, and carried everything out to the little courtyard outside. Jean-Guy held the door open for him. 

“They seem like very nice humans,” Una said, as she sat down at the picnic table. “It was all quite technical for me, but I understand that technology is very complicated for everyone these days.”

“Um,” said Vegard. Then he said, “It’s complicated for us, too. That’s not the kind of thing we’ll be doing.”

“Well no, of course not! You’re going to show them magic. It’s going to break all the rules.”

***

After lunch, there were two more papers, one on zombie pornography and one on Godzilla and environmental racism, and then questions. And then Sigrid ushered everyone out to the hall for more coffee. “The next bit is going to require some setup,” she told the other conference-goers.

The moment the door closed, Vegard and Bård and Henning sprang to life, setting up the things Erling had helped the brothers prepare. 

Una eyed the cabinet they were unfolding in the middle of the stage. Fully extended, it was six feet tall. It was flimsy, but it would only have to last for one show. “Is all that really necessary?”

“We're going to show them something they think they've seen before,” Bård said. “Only we're going to add magic to it.”

“Hm,” she said, and she didn't look entirely convinced, but she didn't say anything more about it.

Setup took nearly half of their presentation time, but that was all right. They wouldn't need long. They texted Sigrid and took their seats. A moment later, the doors opened and everyone came filing back in. 

“We got a pleasant surprise this morning,” Sigrid told the attendees as they shuffled papers and programmes and coffees. “I have the pleasure of announcing two very special presenters. I'm not completely sure why they chose us, but I do know that we're very very lucky to have them. Students and faculty, ladies and gentlemen and everyone, please give a warm welcome to... Ylvis!”

There was a moment of shocked silence, and then hearty applause and one “YEAH!” from the back. Bård and Vegard took the stage, and the applause grew. People looked incredulously at each other. Bård saw a couple of people plucking the sleeves of their neighbours, and the neighbours apparently explaining who Ylvis was. He clearly saw a pair of lips shape “gering-ding-ding-a-ding-a-ding-ding” and couldn't keep a wild grin off his face.

“Thank you, Sigrid,” he said. “And good afternoon, University of Oslo Department of Literature, Area Studies, and European Languages and honoured guests from around the world! I of course am Bård Ylvisåker.” He indicated his nametag with a little flourish. “Or, to my close friends, Bårk. This is my brother Vegard.”

Vegard stepped up to the front, beaming. He was using his slick TV presenter voice. “You, of course, are the experts on unseen worlds, but we make the argument, not a new one, that professional experience, hands-on experience, is also valuable.”

“So,” Bård said, “we have arranged with the lovely learned Sigrid to take this time to share our professional experience with unseen worlds. Vegard?”

“Thank you, Bård. Over to you.”

It was a little weird. They counted on a bit of laughter at moments like this, but here was an audience who had come to hear sober academic papers and wouldn't dream of interrupting someone's presentation, and yes, at least three people were taking notes. Bård counted the muted ripple of laughter that went through the room as as much reaction as he was going to get. He folded his hands behind his back and said, “You share the planet at all times with people you do not see, whose lives are every bit as important as your own. Some of them are happy enough to live unseen, at least by you, because they have friends and family and respect and everything they could want for. Others don’t want to be invisible to you, and they live their lives in quiet obscurity, desperate for someone, anyone to notice and acknowledge the problems they face every day. Clever how it’s done, too.” Bård opened up a fold in space and slipped a hand in, drawing out a black top hat, which he tossed to Vegard. The audience gasped, and applause started. 

Vegard flashed the inside of it, and started waving his hands over it. “Pay attention, and as if by magic they appear. It _is_ magic, you know. The perfect combination of misdirection, illusion, and manipulation of what you _want_ to believe. And the people who engineer it can produce…” He reached into the hat, into another fold of space, and drew out a bunch of flowers. “…whatever you want to see.”

There was another ripple of laughter, and polite applause.

“Our brains tend to put things into boxes,” Bård said, and Vegard stepped into the cabinet. “It's a good way of organizing things, especially in a hurry, but then you might get the idea that what you can't see, you can't hurt.” He showed the audience a long thin knife, but what he seemed to plunge into the slotted cabinet was a much shorter one, and it was going not into the cabinet, but into a tiny translation portal that swallowed the short blade and spit it out on the other side of the portal. Conjuring it, and moving it to keep it in line with the blade, was the hardest magic he had to do today, but the small size and short range made it manageable. He sliced down, and then out stepped Vegard. Half of Vegard, his left side glamoured invisible, the edges of his visible self grey and misty. 

“It's okay,” Vegard told the enthralled crowd. “I'm all right.”

Bård rolled his eyes. “Everyone, my half-brother.” He shoved Vegard back into the box. “So you see, these things are going on out of sight, and then we wonder why the people in these boxes have trouble pulling themselves together again.”

Vegard emerged from the box whole and unglamoured. The audience applauded, and he took a little bow. “So what do you do about this?” He held up a finger. “Whenever you think you know what’s going on, you look for loose threads, and…” 

Bård reached into the hat, into the portal. “… _pull._ ” He drew out a red scarf, and then a blue one, and then a yellow one. “Examine them from all angles,” he said, passing his hand across the scarves and working a quick glamour, so that they changed to green, purple, and orange, and gathered them into his fist. “Consider how they go together.” He opened his hand, and a banana appeared. He tossed it to a young woman in the audience, who caught it neatly and shared it with two friends. : _What is_ she _doing?_ : he silently asked Vegard, who had taken a seat crosslegged on the stage.

: _Watching the audience. Watching to see if their little human minds are blown. I think we called it right._ : 

Bård showed the audience the empty inside of the hat, and conjured a fountain of illusory sparks from it, grinning wildly. “Anytime something big and interesting is going on, pay attention to where your eyes _aren’t_ supposed to be.” He gestured to Vegard, who was hovering half a foot off the stage. 

“Oh, this isn’t magic,” Vegard assured the crowd. “This is the bean salad from lunch. Applause for the catering!”

There was laughter and enthusiastic applause. 

Bård reached into the hat and started pulling out individual tulips, which he handed to the closest audience members. “When someone tells you about what they _say_ is reality, ask yourself, who stands to gain the most from your believing them?” He drew out a single evening primrose, and rushed it over to a surprised faculty member in the back row, an elderly brown-skinned man who blushed as he accepted the flower. “And who gets left out?”

“We’ve shown you magic,” Vegard said. “We’ve told you how it’s used to hide the whole truth from you, including people you really ought to see, because they are truly outstanding and deserve to be seen.” He tried to put on the hat. He had to pull a salted sheep’s thigh out of it first, and handed it off to a bemused person with thick glasses and blue hair.

Bård took up the thread, sparks trailing in the air as he gestured. “It’s not our place to tell anyone what to do about them. But when you go beyond these walls, and present everything that you’ve learned to the people in power, who we all hope will listen to you, we want to ask you, please, please, don’t forget them.”

There was warm applause. 

And then Una leapt out of her chair. “What? That’s it? You just saw magic done in front of you!”

The applause picked up, and there were a couple of self-conscious whoops. 

Then Una pulled out a crossbow, and it got very, very quiet. “I don’t know what elfshot does to humans, but I bet it doesn’t tickle,” she said.

“ _Elf_ shot?” someone echoed softly.

Thirty-three pairs of eyes fixed on Una, who was aiming the weapon at the brothers. And then they shifted, slightly, to focus on the air behind her, and the disembodied hand that emerged from it.

***

Stian had pressed them into a run. There was light up ahead, and Calle didn’t understand at first why it was so urgent that they reach it, but Stian had proven true so far, so he ran. And then, when he was close enough to see the woman in front of him pull that weird gun on Bård and Vegard, he understood.

He reached out and plucked the weapon from her hand as the momentum hurtled him back into a world full of intense light and colour, the air constantly in motion and rich with smells. Stian was right beside him, paws sliding on the polished floor, and he flung his suitcase away from him in order to keep his balance. 

For the barest second, a pink cartoon cat in a Hawaiian shirt stood amidst a crowd of humans. Then there was a little disturbance, a _pop_ of displaced air, and in its place stood another Vegard with longer hair that streamed with water. He wore a crown of flowers, and nothing else.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Suggested musical pairing: the first half of Vicetone's soundtrack mix of "United We Dance," to about 7:55 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tzV5TdAbUI


	14. Juice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Be free.” / Summer fun in Oslo #8: Taking the tram / Think of the children! / Maybe you should put some shorts on or something if you want to keep fighting evil today.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning for emetophobia.

The look on Finn's face was one of dawning horror. He glanced down, and snatched a tablecloth from the beverage table. He pulled out the cloth so quickly and deftly that the water pitcher and the stacks of glasses barely budged. As he wrapped it around his waist and over one shoulder, the conference-goers applauded again, laughing. The woman who had had the gun, Calle saw, had gone from shocked to tight-mouthed and rigid, and now she seemed to be reaching for her ring. For a split second Calle was about to dismiss the gesture as nothing, and then he remembered that these people--at least some of them--could do magic. He grinned at nothing and put an arm around her in a friendly-looking gesture that effectively pinned her arms to her sides.

“All right,” said the one Calle had heard called Sigrid, getting up and taking the microphone, “I’d like to extend a hearty thanks to Ylvis, Calle Hellevang-Larsen, and, um, their crew,” she said, nodding at the others, “for that splendid performance. And now, it looks like they have a bit of cleanup to do, so let’s reconvene in twenty minutes.”

The attendees filed out, some of them pausing to thank Ylvis. “Finn, is it?” Calle asked the Vegard lookalike, out of the side of his mouth.

Finn grinned sheepishly back, tucking a wet lock of hair and a harebell behind his ear. “Yeah. I don’t know if you knew it, but we met last December.” 

“I knew... _something_ ,” Calle told him. “Thank you for getting me out of there, though. And for standing up to that thing. And I... I’m sorry for all the times I picked you up and buried my face in your side. I can see now how that must have been weird.”

Finn waved the thought away. “I had a very long walk back. It was nice to have a friend carry me.”

“Your back is bleeding,” Vegard observed. He soaked a napkin in water and started dabbing at the tiny spots of blood on Finn’s back and shoulders.

“Thank you very much for that,” Sigrid said, when the room had emptied out as much as it was going to. Two women stood in a back corner, talking animatedly in German, but they appeared to be focused entirely on departmental politics. “That was a very innovative presentation on subaltern studies.” 

Jean-Guy turned to Finn. “That was wild. I have to know, how did you get that cartoon effect?”

“Oh, I don’t want to bore you with technical details,” Finn said. “It was an illusion.”

“And clothing interferes with it?” 

Finn nodded. “Very insightful. I, uh, didn’t mean to flash your entire gathering, but I accidentally got out of range of the projection device.”

Sigrid turned to the slight, golden-haired woman who had pulled her weapon on the brothers. “And you scared the bejeezus out of me! For a second I thought it was for real!”

“It’s all for real,” she said stiffly. “I’ve been fighting for years to change the way humans see reality.”

“And you’re winning,” Sigrid assured her. “Well, I’ll let you do your takedown. Can you be out of here by twenty after?” Thus assured, Sigrid and Jean-Guy left.

“Calle?” Bård said cautiously. “ _Real_ Calle?”

“I’d hug you guys,” Calle said, motioning at the woman with his chin, “but I don’t think it’s a good idea to let her go.”

Finn raised a hand. Una fixed him with a freezing glare. “You have neither standing nor my true name, changeling, and if you even attempt to curse me I’ll bring the fullness of the law down onto your head.”

“I have both, Uonaidh Banríon Laochra Gruaigbhán of Elphame, consort of Fionnbharr of Knockmaa, called Fairhair, called Ginereálta Álainn, called Ciallmhar,” Finn said gently. He blew a puff of air into his own hand, and made a scattering gesture at her. “Just a little binding spell,” he explained. “You will raise no hand to me or mine, and I’m sure that when I acquaint the dálki with the circumstances, there will be no trouble.” Then he took the crossbow from Calle’s hand, and shook it a little, sending it up in flames. 

Bård hugged Calle with a little growl. “We were so worried about you.”

Finn, who had stepped back to let the others get at Calle, let out a squeak as Vegard gave him a brief, tight hug. “You sound a lot better,” Vegard said. “How do you feel?”

“Wet,” Finn said. “Hungry. My eyes are kind of itchy. My lungs feel gross. How much do you know?”

“Melantha told us about the bronchitis.”

“Bronchitis! Um. It was a little worse than bronchitis. But I’m much better now. And it sounds like she didn’t worry too much, so that’s a plus.” 

Now Calle turned away from the woman they’d called Una. Because standing with his back to the wall, watching all these proceedings with a look on his face that some would mistake for boredom or disapproval but Calle recognized as the ragged edge of panic, was… himself.

Finn was at Calle’s side in an instant, and his voice was the low, even, artificially calm voice of someone approaching a shy animal. “Una made a copy of you, and tried to use you to control him. This is Henning. Henning, this is Calle.”

“Hello,” Henning said, scrambling to attention and sticking out his hand for Calle to shake.

Calle shook it carefully. “Hello.”

“I’m really sorry. I didn’t want to…”

“Are Kaja and Knut all right?”

“Oh yes. I tried to stay away as much as possible.”

“Sine?”

“She read me a poem she’d written. It made me cry. I told her it was very good.”

Calle grinned at this. “Thank you.”

“I never wanted any of this to happen,” Henning said in a rush.

“Which decisions, exactly, were yours?”

“To tell her it was very good. Before that, to order juice in the restaurant. And the fish. It was a bit greasy, but I stand by it. To keep playing the lyngepause.”

“That’s it?” Calle said. 

Henning nodded. “That doesn’t mean I didn’t do terrible things, though. Or try, anyway. If it wasn’t for your friends, it would have been a lot worse.”

Calle looked at him for a long time. “I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to say. I mean… I’m sorry too. That this was done to you. What… what did you look like before?”

Henning smiled sadly, and pointed out the window. “See the tall guy?”

“I don’t see anyone.”

“The pine.”

“Oh. _Oh._ ” Calle looked at Henning again. “Oh. God. This must be so weird. I’m sorry.”

Henning shrugged. “It wasn’t you.”

“So what are you going to do now?”

Henning looked stricken. “I don’t know, I don’t bloody know. I don’t even know how long I’ve got left.”

Finn put a hand on his arm. He looked like he’d changed into black jeans and a burgundy t-shirt, but his shoulder against Calle’s still felt like a damp tablecloth. “My brother decided long ago that you have a place with him, if you want it. And I have friends who will help you get everything else set up.”

Henning looked hopefully at Calle. Calle said, “Well sure! You don’t need my permission!” He looked around, and saw that Finn looked dubious, Vegard looked vexed, Bård looked sad, and Una looked smug. “He can’t seriously need my permission. Can he?” He turned to Finn. “You’re a changeling and you don’t have to do what these guys say, do you? How did it work for you?”

Around him there was a flurry of negation. “No no no no no no no,” Vegard said, hands fluttering. “You’re not doing that.”

“But he’s a... not a human being, per se, but he’s still...”

“It doesn’t matter,” Bård said darkly. “It calls for a blood sacrifice.”

Vegard appeared to be on the edge of hyperventilating, and he rubbed his upper lip, eyes shut tight. “I’m sorry,” he said, “I’m sorry, it’s your decision of course. But all that trouble last winter was because I... Even though it was the right thing to do, I... they... they made my life hell, and they just made the punishments for it worse.”

“Breathe,” Bård murmured.

“You’re telling me that whether I want it or not, I’ve got a copy of myself who has to do whatever I tell him to do?” Calle demanded.

Henning nodded miserably, and stared at his shoes. “I’m sorry.”

“Then listen carefully,” Calle said, and put a finger under Henning’s chin, drawing it up so that they were looking into each other’s eyes. “There’s one ground rule that’s going to cover all our other interactions, and all your interactions with everyone.”

“I’m listening,” Henning said.

“Be free.”

Tears started in Henning’s eyes. “Thank you.”

Calle looked up at the others. “Is that good? Is there anything else I have to do?”

Finn moved his shoulders uncomfortably. “I guess… it’s as good as you can get by traditional methods.”

Calle indicated Una with a glance. “And what about _her_?”

“I’m still bound to her,” Henning said miserably. “She can’t make me _be_ you anymore, not without you at the controls, but she can still trigger my kidnapping subroutine anytime she feels like it, and I have to obey her orders.”

“Like so,” Una said in a rush, as if she’d been waiting for this moment. “Changeling? Die now.”

Henning dropped.

“NO!” It came from four throats, virtually in unison. 

Calle fell to his knees immediately, feeling for a pulse. There was nothing. Trying to ignore the sight of his own dead face, he tilted Henning’s head back, pinched his nose, breathed into him. As he did chest compressions, he looked up at Una, his face streaked with tears. “Why did you do that?” he demanded, before giving Henning two more breaths.

“Oh sweetie,” Una said. Her voice was like a warm spring rain. “I know it’s hard, because he looks just like you, but changelings are just animated pieces of wood. And you can’t just leave them around unsupervised. It’s not safe. They’re not even really legal, but, well, some causes are worth getting your hands a bit dirty for, right boys?”

“Screw you,” Bård said.

“Bloody hell,” Finn said softly. He stepped away for a moment, and when he returned, he knelt down on Henning’s other side, turning away, fumbling with something. While Calle did another round of chest compressions, Finn stuck a finger in his mouth--it came out red--and painted some kind of design on Henning’s forehead. As Calle bent to breathe for Henning again, Finn touched two fingers to his own lips, and then to Henning’s forehead, just above the glyph. 

Henning sucked in a breath, and his eyes fluttered open before rolling back again. 

Calle sat back. “Come on, breathe, buddy, breathe...”

Henning breathed deeply, once and then again. His head tossed a little, and his feet and fingers twitched. 

Vegard drew Calle up and back. “Let’s just give him some space,” he said. 

Calle stared. “Does 113 even handle people like him? I think he’s having some kind of seizure.” 

“The spell is rewriting every cell of his body,” Finn murmured a bit mushily, casting all around him. 

“Finn...” There was despair in Bård’s voice, and then it firmed up. “Nobody here is going to say _anything_. Right?”

Finn had found an empty drinking glass, and with a grimace he spat cherry pulp and cherry pits sat into the bottom. “Anything about what?” he said innocently. Seizing a pitcher of water, he took a mouthful directly from the spout, swished it around, and spat it into the glass. “Ugh. Calle, you were so right, and I am so sorry. Can’t do _that_ anymore.”

***

“You used cherry juice?” Vegard asked. “What’s that going to do?”

“Dunno,” Finn replied, his voice ragged. He rinsed and spat one more time, and coughed harshly. For a moment his throat worked like it was threatening to turn into something else, but he held his forearm over his mouth and breathed with his eyes shut tight, and it seemed to subside. Finally he took a deep breath and said, “I was iffy about suggesting it before, but when he wasn’t breathing, it seemed like we had nothing to lose.” He reached into the glass, fished out the pits, and put them in his pocket. Then he knelt down, smoothing Henning’s hair back from his eyes. “Brynjar might have some idea. Where is he?”

“He and his friends are my guests,” Una said.

“I don’t like your smile,” Vegard said. 

“Una, please, we did what you said!” Bård protested. “We kept our end of the bargain. You watched us do magic in front of that entire conference of, of young intellectuals. And it’s on tape.”

“I’m not a fool,” she said acidly. “You’ve made it painfully clear to me that I don’t know humans, so I don’t know how you fogged their minds, but you didn’t change a thing. Your defenders are wrong about you, Ylvis; you have no honour.” 

There was a knock at the closed door. “Are you guys nearly done in there?”

Vegard flew to life, rearranging chairs, cleaning up spills. Calle, keeping half an eye on Henning all the while, helped collect glasses and scarves and flowers. Finn shifted glasses and pitchers off the bare table.

One of the German woman slipped out. “They’re painting each other’s faces in there,” they heard her report.

With a heavy sigh, Finn fumbled with something under his arm. He grimaced as--without any apparent change to his attire--he balled up the wrinkled, damp, slightly bloodied tablecloth, and put it in a plastic bag that looked like it had held cups.

They emerged from the conference room to find the attendees milling in the corridor, talking over coffee and pastries. Bård and Vegard had Una gently but firmly held between them. Finn and Calle supported a groggy, confused Henning. Calle was also carrying Finn’s cartoon suitcase. Vegard and Bård were intercepted by a few more well-wishers, and posed for photos with Una looking long-suffering between them. Finn used the pause to pass some pastries to Calle and Henning and fold up others in a napkin, and pour three coffees, which he doctored with cream. 

Outside, Finn handed his share of the coffee and pastry to Calle, and marched straight to the bushes. He coughed a few times, the sound coming from deep in his chest. Una turned away when he started gagging, and the brothers were occupied with her, so only Calle was at the right angle to see Finn bring up a quantity of what looked like brackish water. 

He stood panting for a moment, then spat into the bushes and raised his head. “Much better,”he said, taking his coffee and pastry from Calle with murmured thanks. His breath smelled… refreshingly woodsy. He frowned at the air. “Something’s wrong. I thought she just might not recognize me on the old roads, but... Sleipnir should _be_ here.” He sighed. “Una?”

“It’s not right, you know,” Una said. “She’s a grand old horse. And he was using her terribly.”

“Who, Brynjar?” Vegard shrilled. “ _How?_ ”

Una’s look was icy. “She was the steed of a _god_. Reduced to doing the bidding of a puppet. Well, she’s with him now. There was no help for it.”

“Tram,” Vegard said. With a glare at Una, he pulled out his wallet, and towed an outraged Bård along by the arm. Finn soaked a napkin with coffee, and wiped the dried glyph off Henning’s forehead.

They went to Forskningsparken, and rode to Tøyen. Finn huddled by a pole, sipping his coffee, shying well away from anyone who got on. “Aren’t you going to sit?” Calle said finally, around his second cherry cheese Danish. “We just had a very long walk.”

Finn flashed a broad joyless grin. “I’m just fine,” he said, without moving his lips.

Vegard leaned over and whispered, “If he’s wearing clothes to you, it’s an illusion. He’s still naked.”

“And freezing,” Finn said through his teeth.

“We can tell,” Bård replied jovially, and Finn cuffed the side of his head.

Calle gestured with his Danish at a camera phone a few seats down. “Is, uh, that going to be a problem?”

“Happily no,” Finn told him. “Any kind of magic interferes with recording devices, so as long as I’m weaving an illusion around me I’m safe.”

“ _Gods_ , of _course_ , that’s why you didn’t object to taping,” Una muttered. 

“Finn,” Vegard said, “do _you_ think dropping glamour would be a good thing or a bad thing?”

“What, right now?” Finn squawked.

“I mean in general.”

“Trade,” Una said. “Intercultural exchange. New markets! We’ve demonstrated that we can coexist; now it’s time to take away the lies.”

Finn frowned, and rested his head against the pole. “I don’t know,” he said finally. “I think it could be good for some people on both sides, and very _very_ bad for others. And if a bunch of people would suffer violence, or even just have to live in fear... to me, that’s a pretty powerful argument against. But you’d have to ask them what _they_ want.”

“They don’t _know_ what they want,” Una said. “They don’t remember what’s been taken from them.”

Finn straightened up, no longer considering. “That’s a no, then. You don’t get to make huge decisions that change a bunch of people’s lives, if that’s what you think of them.”

“Hmph!” Una sniffed. “Well, your opinion doesn’t count either. You just say what he tells you to say.”

“That’s not even a little bit true,” Vegard sighed.

Calle and Henning sat side by side, taking all this in with identical expressions of wary watchfulness.

“Larsen,” Bård said, “you all right?”

“It’s good to sit,” Calle said. 

“Where did they move you?” Vegard asked. “Bård found the room in the museum, but you were already gone.”

“I don’t know,” Calle said. “I wasn’t paying attention for the first little bit, and then when I started, everything was so _weird_.”

“They hid him on one of the far branches,” Finn explained. “You can get to it on the old roads, but it’s a long walk. Our paths crossed by the purest chance.”

Calle reached up and squeezed Finn’s forearm. “This guy was incredible. Some... _something_ kept trying to get me back, and Finn--”

“A gangari,” Finn interrupted in a rush. “A leftover from the Iron Wars.”

Una’s eyes widened. “What did you do to my gangari?”

“Just talked them over to our side,” Finn said smoothly.

“That is _not_ what that was!” Calle protested.

“Well, made them talk themself over to our side, then.”

Una’s hands twitched, and she scowled, but whatever she wanted to do to Finn, his binding spell held. “You’re a monster,” she settled for saying. “If you could understand what you’ve done, you would never sleep again.”

Finn sighed, and gave her a weary smile. “Lady, I have a nine-week-old at home. I’m not going to sleep for the next eighteen years.”

Calle cocked his head. “Whoa, congratulations! Boy or girl?”

Finn’s face lit up. “Girl. Rhiannon.” And as he burbled happily about her, Una’s face changed, turned a little thoughtful and a little sad.

***

Una had never had children. She’d tried, with a few people, after the Third Crossing, but then the wars had started and it didn’t seem right to bring a child into that; or later, when it became clear that the shaky peace would hold for as long as the Great Glamour held, to bring a child into a world where he or she or they would have to skulk and hide and lie as a matter of course. She’d realized around the time of the Victory of the Light that there wouldn’t be any children, not for her, but she’d seen the faces of the Bright’s war orphans at functions, seen artists’ renderings of the mass graves in the tunnels, seen a dragon devour an entire family of svarts tied to stakes for the entertainment of her own people, and understood that elven culture had turned into a festering sore. For the sake of children everywhere, they needed to let the air at it. They needed the humans, to keep them from turning on each other. And she had trusted badly, she had ignored good advice, and this was how it had turned out.

It shouldn’t have affected her so, to learn that this changeling had spawned. She’d heard rumours of freed ones managing to do that. It wasn’t right, to inflict that kind of life on a child. But it was hard to see the change in his face and his voice and convince herself that these things didn’t feel real emotions. If _she_ could have had her own little one... For that matter, if the people who’d looked at her that way hadn’t been taken away from her so soon...

The tram slowed again, and this time the others got to their feet, pulling her up with them. Tøyen. She filed off with them, held between Bård and Vegard. At least they had the decency not to manhandle her, and the changeling’s binding spell was a gentle one. Strong, though. She wondered if it would let her tell Erling to take her ring and use it on them once they got into Hagefestning. They should have worked out some kind of code beforehand. 

For just a moment, part of her was tempted not to trouble further about it. Appealing to the leadership of the humans this way, whether by replacing its head or enlisting the favoured sons of Bergen to plead the case, clearly was not going to be successful. She only wished that she’d given it up earlier--say, when the first changelings had escaped. But she’d emerged from that funk eventually. You won battles by thinking, by adjusting tactics, by repurposing what you had. She had invested so much time and money, and called in so many favours, sinking resource upon resource into a project that she realized now was beyond salvage. She would extend her condolences about the changelings, and vow to mend her ways...

Except it wasn’t just changelings, was it?, she realized as they ushered her up the street, and her sadness turned to dread. There were the three other gods. And Sleipnir. It had been easy to convince herself that the public would see them as acceptable sacrifices in the cause of human and elven harmony, but since no harmony was forthcoming, she was probably in a lot of trouble.

No, she saw as the entrance to the botanical gardens rippled and shimmered with dálki wards, there was no _probably_ about it. 

Vegard blinked out a contact lens. “It looks like police tape,” he reported. He waved his hand at a dálki vehicle. “And this is an exterminator’s van, and the people look like they’re spraying.” He turned to Finn. “Nice outfit.”

“Thanks.”

As they approached the gate, a dálki officer came to meet them. Una had a sinking feeling, but the officer only held up a hand. “I’m sorry,” she said. “We’re having some trouble with a magical incident, and I’m going to have to ask you to leave the area.”

Any thought of wrongdoing fled. “But my home is there!” Una protested. “I’m not even going to be allowed to go home?”

The officer’s eyes widened. “You’re the holder of Hagefestning?”

“I am, and I am having a very bad day!”

The officer drew a simple glyph in the air. “Guys, I’ve got the holder of the property,” she said grimly. To Una, she said, “Milady, it’s about to get a whole lot worse.”

***

From three sides, it appeared that someone had added a very ill-thought out abstract sculpture to a copse of lilac trees. Gleaming incandescent white crystals spilled out, with the edge closest to the trees neatly cut off. When the dálki officer accompanied them inside the first ward, though, and they saw it head on, the extent of the damage was clear: Hagefestning was encrusted with a thick layer of grimmurgaldur.

Una stopped short, and brought her hands to her mouth. Her distress looked genuine.

“Would anyone have been inside, Milady?” the officer asked. The name on her badge said Vreniel. 

Her mouth worked. “My man, Erling. And some changelings, for my own use. And perhaps... Look I don’t understand how this happened! I do keep some grimmurgaldur around, it’s true, but I keep it very safely contained.”

“I’m sorry, Milady, but not safely enough,” Officer Vreniel said. “We’re just waiting on the Peace Division to come and fold this whole section of the gardens right out of space. We can set you up somewhere else, don’t you worry.”

“Erling!” Una wailed. “My beautiful _home_!”

“We can’t leave it,” the officer said. “The crystals are spreading.”

Finn glared at Una. “Did you use it on Brynjar?” he demanded. 

Una sighed, and her mouth tightened. “He was about to throw a tantrum.”

“Milady!” Officer Vreniel said, looking shocked.

“Well, well I don’t know what else you would expect me to do,” Una protested. “It’s okay,” she assured the officer, whose jaw dropped. “He’s just a changeling.”

The officer closed her mouth, but she didn’t look happy.

“You used it on my brother, a _god_ , whose powers include _broadcasting_ ,” Finn said through his teeth. “And now he’s _screaming_ , the only way he knows how, and you wonder what’s wrong!” He waved a hand, snapping the binding spell on Una, and started off in the direction of the crystalline magic.

“Sir, you can’t--”

Finn turned and planted his feet in the grass. “If anyone can, it’s me.” He moved to wheel around again.

The officer said, “Will you put on some pants, at least?”

“Oh.” Finn’s shoulders sagged, and he looked bleakly up at her. “I guess that’s probably a good idea, huh?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Suggested musical pairing: the second half of Vicetone's soundtrack mix of "United We Dance," from 7:56 to the end - https://youtu.be/2tzV5TdAbUI?t=7m56s


	15. Strange Bedfellows

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Calle meets the dálki / Sweetness / A regular pantheon / A suit of armour

The dálki had set up a sort of camp behind the museum building. There they’d found a pair of jogging pants and a white t-shirt for Finn, and a couple of them brought Una into a tent for a very long talk. As Bård, Vegard, Calle, and Henning waited, a Riddari Randiel came to stand beside them. Vegard’s back bowed, and he turned subtly away. Bård stepped between them. “Excuse me,” he said. “I know your name somehow.” 

The elf inclined his head. “My brother-in-law was with the Bodø dálki,” he said. “He died in Ragnarok.” He eyed both brothers. “Seems like every time there’s big trouble, you two are in the middle of it somehow.”

“Una was trying to get hold of us,” Vegard said fretfully. “She kidnapped one friend and hurt another, she held us hostage, she wanted to hurt the Prime Minister...”

“Hey, hey,” Officer Randiel said, reaching out for Vegard’s shoulder. Vegard ducked away.

Calle joined Bård where he stood between Randiel and Vegard, and offered a hand. “Calle Hellevang-Larsen. Good to meet you.”

Randiel shook dubiously. “Human?”

“Yeah.” He lifted his shoulders in a slow shrug. “Ummm... pixie?”

Randiel guffawed. “Good gods, human, do I _look_ like a pixie?”

“I promise I’m not trying to be racist,” Calle said, “but you literally all look human to me.”

The riddari clapped him hard on the shoulder. “That’s glamour.” He looked to Bård and Vegard. “You guys get him mixed up in this?”

“They tried to keep me out of it, and now I guess I see why.” Calle waved in the direction Una had gone. “ _She_ had me kidnapped. She replaced me with my not-all-that-evil twin.”

Randiel turned from Calle and grabbed Henning, who whimpered but made no other protest, and looked him over very closely. “Is that blood on his forehead?” He looked hard at Vegard, who looked away, slowly backing up. Randiel released Henning, and spun on Vegard, reaching out. “Haven’t you learned _anything_? Vegard Urheim Ylvisåker, under the--”

“It’s cherry juice!” Bård shouted, and he and Calle moved between the dálki officer and Vegard. “Vegard didn’t do it, and it’s not blood, it’s cherry juice!”

A svartalfr woman in a technician’s jacket walked up, wearing white silk gloves and fiddling with some sort of instrument, and positioned herself meaningfully in front of the riddari. “So you’re the humans who are helping us with our investigation,” she said, a little bit loudly. “Riddari Randiel, I’m glad you found them. I’m sure they have questions, and I can answer them.”

Calle took another look at Vegard’s face, took him firmly by the elbow, and led him to a clear place in the grass. “We’re going to sit over here for awhile,” he said in soothing tones. “Deep breaths. It’s okay.”

They sat. Calle wished idly for a cigarette. Vegard closed his eyes and rubbed his chest and breathed deeply for a solid minute. “I’m missing the briefing,” he said thinly. 

“I’m pretty sure it’s not important,” Calle said. “She was just trying to de-escalate.”

“Okay,” Vegard said. “But I want to understand.”

“You're not going to be able to help your friend if you're freaking out,” Calle said. “Jesus, Vegard, have you had _any_ sleep?”

“Two hours.” Vegard pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes for a few seconds, and then climbed to his feet and rejoined the others, who were listening rapt as the technician talked about polymorphism and transfigurative reiterations. He was still taking deep breaths, and standing as far as he could be away from Riddari Randiel.

***

Brynjar had been unreachable for days. And when her phone rang, and the screen said it was the dálki, Melantha _knew_.

She let it ring three more times. As long as no one said it to her, it was still a world with Finn in it. Shouldn’t they come to the door, anyway?

Footsteps sounded in the hall. “Melantha, dear, your phone is ringing.”

Melantha answered. “Hello,” she said thinly.

“Melly, my treasure,” Finn said.

Those three words made nine days of nervous tension run from her limbs, and she sat, heavily. “Finn... oh gods, Finn...”

“I’m sorry I didn’t call earlier. I... I guess you heard, I wasn’t well.”

Ariadne had appeared in the doorway, her hands on her hips, a scowl on her perfect fine-boned features.

“Brynjar told us.” Tears pricked at Melantha’s eyes, and she almost swallowed them back instinctively, but then she let them flow. Let her mother see she’d unlearned her lessons well. “But then he stopped calling, and no one could get hold of him, and I thought... I thought...”

His voice was like an auditory caress. “Oh, sweetness, sweetness. Listen, are you and Riri okay?”

“We’re fine. We’re--” She hazarded a glance at her mother, who was now leaning against the kitchen doorframe, arms folded. “-- _all_ fine. Is Brynjar--?”

“Brynjar needs a little bit of rescuing,” Finn said, in the calm, reassuring voice he only trotted out when everything was going terribly, terribly wrong. “I have to see to that, but I wanted to talk to you first.”

She laughed bitterly. “There’s a good chance it’s going to get you killed, isn’t it?”

“Er... not _killed_ precisely.”

“Crystallized? With grimmurgaldur?”

Ariadne’s scowl deepened. 

“You know about that?” Finn said, relief in his voice.

“Whose is it? I’ve been trying for days to track down sources, but the only local I can find is Una Fairhair, and--”

“Una Fairhair?” her mother echoed.

“Yes!” Finn said. “The dálki have her now, but...”

“I _knew_ it!” Melantha said triumphantly, and then the phone was plucked from her hand. 

“Put Una on, please,” Ariadne said to Finn.

Finn’s response was surprisingly short and firm.

“In a minute,” Ariadne said, “but I have to talk to Una.”

Finn’s voice rose loud enough to be tinnily audible over the speaker. “Let me say goodbye to my fiancée, you poison-tongued harpy, or so help me I’ll turn every plant in your bower to giant hogweed!”

Ariadne’s face went expressionless. Melantha took the opportunity to snatch the phone away from her. Her voice wavered with laughter. “I love you, Finn Weber.”

“Oh, Melly.” He sounded sorry already. “I’m in a lot of trouble, aren’t I?”

“Just this once, you’ve got bigger things to worry about than my mother. Is there anything I can do?”

His voice caught. “If... if I don’t make it, make sure Riri knows how much I will always, always love her. And never forget... you are _perfect_. Just as you are. My Melly.”

She was crying again. “I meant... to maybe help you _not_ die?” Hands closed on the phone again. “I love you!” she said in a rush as Ariadne grabbed it away from her.

***

Finn had a bit of a cry before rejoining his cousins, Henning, and Calle, outside of the tent. His chest was still tight. He took a deep breath. “Guys...”

“Ready to go?” Vegard, who had been sitting on the ground, uncrossed his legs and tried to do a kip-up. On his second attempt, Calle took pity on him and seized his flailing hand, and they clustered around Finn.

“Wait,” Bård said. “Calle, you and Henning stay back here.”

Calle looked vexed, but he swallowed hard, and nodded. “Makes sense.” 

“ _All_ of you stay,” Finn said. 

“The hell we will!” Bård protested. 

“If this stuff got to Brynjar,” Vegard said, “there’s no way you can face it down alone.”

“I’m the only one who _has_ faced it down,” Finn replied. “They crystallized me when they tried to kidnap us at the studio, and I broke it. There’s a part of me it can’t touch.”

“This isn’t the same kind of crystallization,” said a woman in a jacket that said “Magisk Inneslutning.” “That was having the pattern imposed on you. This is contact with the seed crystals. It’s like... it’s like being lit up by a fire, versus being _on_ fire. Our team and NUA are both working on it, and with a month they might be able to come up with a counterspell, or even just a shield suitable for living things, but this stuff is spreading fast and we need to get it out of here.”

“If you get it out of here now,” Bård said, “when you develop a counterspell, can you call it back and get everyone out?”

She looked, for a second, very weary. “I just don’t know,” she said. “All the old research on grimmurgaldur was abandoned and destroyed at the end of the war. Maybe they found something that would help us, but based on what we have right now, you’re asking me to speculate on something that has never, ever happened.”

“He’s my brother,” Finn said. “I’m going to go get him.”

Another officer emerged from another tent. Finn recognized him as the man whose cell phone he’d borrowed. The officer paused outside the door for a moment, running both of his hands over his face and through his long blond hair. Then he seemed to find purpose, and stalked over to where Finn and the others were clustered. 

“She give us anything?” Vreniel asked. 

“Yeah,” the officer said bleakly. “She’s got a regular pantheon in there. Well connected, too. If we fold them out, we take out a third of the gods in Oslo, plus Sleipnir.”

“Fewmets!” the technician growled. “I’ll have to redo our calculations. Folding them out might not even be possible.”

“I’m going to get _all_ of them,” Finn amended.

“Not just yet, you aren’t,” the blond officer said. “Una wants to see all of you.”

***

Someone had found Una a comfortable chair and a tall frosty glass of something light pink, with fruit floating in it. She sat with her elbow on the table, daintily propping up her chin. “I don’t expect anyone to understand _why_ ,” she said, petulant. “It’s plain that everyone’s been against me from the start.”

“Now now,” said the blond officer in suddenly ingratiating tones, “no one’s against you, but these young men have volunteered to see if they can undo, um, the mess in your house, so we do need you to tell them what you told me.”

Una raised an eyebrow at Finn. “Ariadne Aruviel wished me--in her charming _rustic_ way--to share with you anything that might help. Who is she to _you_?”

Finn gave her a wide, close-mouthed smile utterly devoid of humour. “My future mother-in-law. Assuming I have a future, which they tell me is looking less and less likely.”

Her face softened. “But you’ve got a baby. Don’t they make exceptions, if you’re a parent?”

“No one’s making me do this,” he said. “My brother is in there, and I’m the only one who’s been able to resist crystallization.”

Her eyes widened for a moment, and then her expression turned philosophical. “That’s true, isn’t it? You appear able to resist a lot of things. Well, I’m to tell you all I have, which isn’t much. Hm. For containment, we used 440-0-800 wards.”

Vegard parsed that out in his head, thinking back to his classes. The first number was resonance, right? And anything above 85 was overkill. The second number was... thickness? No, because zero thickness didn’t make sense. The middle number was permeability. Which meant thickness was 800, and that was ridiculous. “You’d suffocate,” he realized. “If you put it on you, or around you, or anything.” He thought. “What if you had a scuba tank?”

The technician brightened for a second, but then pursed her lips and shook her head. “It’s not just air that can’t get in; it’s light, sound... you’d be blind and deaf, and everything we could use to beam signals to you is blocked by a zero permeability ward. Besides, those aren’t woven from scratch in a day.”

“A salmon-class ward will slow it down, though,” Una said. “It was our protocol if we had an accident.”

“Salmon class?” Bård echoed. “What kind of technology goes from numbers to _entrées_?”

Vegard spread his hands. “Says the man who went from a Pentium 3 to an Apple.”

The technician snorted. “Very old, very complicated wards. They were made of small overlapping impermeable wards, like scales, woven in a more flexible ward that could breathe.”

“And those will buy you seconds,” Una said. “Enough to run away if an accident occurs.”

“And each one takes a week to weave,” the dálki officer said, “and I think you can make the case that the accident has already occurred. Do you have anything these men can _use_?”

She seemed to think it over. Her shoulders sagged. “Not really. It was designed to be unbeatable. The perfect shield, the perfect weapon.”

“Forgive me if I seem a bit obtuse,” Vegard said, “but after the war ended, they let you just hang onto a weapon of mass destruction that has no countermeasures? And you kept it in your _house_?”

“I wore it on my finger,” she said. Her mouth tightened. “Haven’t you ever seen a suit of armour displayed in a castle?”

“Not when it eats people!”

“The wards on it were very safe. Very _very_ safe.”

“Evidently they weren’t safe enough,” Officer Vreniel said.

“ _I_ dismantled them,” she said, “and even you wouldn’t object to the reason. I was reading about malignant precocity, how those poor parents were getting hurt and there were no wards strong enough to protect them from their own children. It’s not completely unbreakable, you see, the strongest magic will crack it, but it recrystallizes almost immediately. And from there... I found other uses for it. Maybe I ought not to have, but it was out anyway. A hundred times since I started this project, I’d thought how much _easier_ grimmurgaldur would make it. And then I heard about that grey eye of your brother’s, and how it seems to see through everything. At that point, I had no choice.”

Finn’s jaw dropped. His mouth worked for a few seconds, and then he turned around and stormed out of the tent.

Bård and Vegard caught up to him. Vegard fully expected to be shooed off again, and this time he was pretty sure he was prepared to let himself be shooed off. The more he heard, the more he realized that he and Bård were clearly out of their depths here. There was nothing he could contribute. He understood Finn feeling like he had to go in and at least try to save Brynjar, but he didn’t think he could handle watching his cousin die.

Sure enough, Finn turned around and said, “This is quite possibly a suicide mission.” But then he added, “Now that I’ve had a chance to think about it, I’d... I’d feel better if you were with me, but I understand if, if...”

“Why would you feel better?” Vegard demanded, mystified.

“If a phalanx of elven scientists couldn’t crack this,” Bård said, “what do you think you’ll be able to do with comedians?”

“I thought we could tell jokes until it cracks up,” Finn replied dryly. “Look, most of what elven scientists are doing right now is refreshing themselves on research that was abandoned for something like fifteen hundred years. And Vegard, Level Eight is pretty decent, and Bård, I would be very surprised if there are three other mages in Scandinavia who do memory magic, and you two are connected by a kind of telepathy that happens once every few centuries, so don’t sell yourselves short. But mostly you guys are _weird_. You solve problems in ways that traditionally trained mages would never think of. You improvise in tandem; it’s seriously beautiful to watch. And I... am not exactly terrible at this stuff myself. _And_ I beat it once before. Well, something like it. I think between the three of us, we have a decent chance.”

“If you’re sure,” Bård said.

“Only if you are,” said Finn.

“Will it get us into trouble?” Vegard asked the officers hovering nearby. 

Vreniel looked exasperated. “If you’re asking our permission to go into a dangerous area…”

“Will we get in trouble?” he pressed.

“If you get hit with those crystals, everything will freeze into lattices, starting with your magic, and your minds will turn into inert patterns of suspended energy.”

“But will we get in trouble from you guys?”

The dálki officer threw up her hands in disgust. “At that point it won’t matter, so no, you won’t get in trouble. Although we will have to tell your grieving families that we gave you every possible warning.”

“’Preciate it,” Vegard said, running after his brother and his cousin. 

They’d been far enough back that the crystals had looked like a bright white mass among the lilacs. As they approached, Vegard saw depth, the entrance to Hagefestning itself. And motion. The crystals were creeping along the bushes and the ground so quickly that their growth was visible. And noise... a sort of faint crackling, or a continuous chewing noise, as things that had been alive and free-flowing hardened and locked. 

“Okay,” Finn said as they drew close enough to feel the heat baking off it. “First we have to get a look inside, and see where everyone is.”

“We know a bit of the layout,” Bård said. “The only people we saw were Una and Erling, though, so there’s got to be more to it.”

Vegard sketched lines of light in the air. They were invisible against the crystals in front of them, so he turned them ninety degrees, so that Finn and Bård could look down on them with grass as the background. “Here’s the main room. And here’s the room where we were. I think there was another door or entryway or something... _here_. And there has to be a kitchen. Or not, I don’t know. It doesn’t obey the same laws as regular space.”

“Still useful,” Finn said. “It sounds like there’s no point concentrating on the main room or the room you were in, so let’s head for that door. If the door’s closed, Vegard and I will hit it with magic--”

“I can hit it,” Bård said, and red and silver flashed across his open palm.

“I know you can, but you’re Plan B,” Finn told him. “In Plan A, we’re counting on you to deflect shards from us, because you’re good at acting on all of one kind of something, and from the sound of it, skin contact with this stuff is all it takes.”

“That's fair,” Bård said, dropping his hands.

“And both of you, if you _are_ hit, go to the place in your mind where you feel safest. Got it? Dive right down. And I promise I’ll find you.”

“Got it,” Vegard said, bringing his hands together. “Recon, find Brynjar and the others, don’t let the crystals touch us.”

“And if we do, go to our happy place,” Bård finished. 

“Right,” Finn said. “But all we’re doing is finding them. When we have a lock on them, we get out, get back here, and make a plan based on what we find out. Okay?”

“I like this new take-charge you,” Bård said, clapping him on the shoulder. 

Finn did something with his mouth and eyes that was not a smile, but conveyed the impression nonetheless. “I’m tired, I’m stressed, I’m overcaffeinated, I’m worried sick about my brother, and my last social grace expired of shock when I climbed onto the tram stark naked. Are we ready to go?”

They followed him under the crystal archway. The air was warm and still. “Big room,” Finn announced, his voice sounding curiously flat. “One...”

Walking on the crystals made Vegard’s legs feel heavy and a bit sore. He drew level with Finn, and saw what he meant: a human-sized pillar of crystal. He turned to Finn--hard to turn, even, with the heat sapping his energy like this--and saw that Finn’s lips were frosted, his face frozen in an expression of shock.

With difficulty, Vegard looked over at Bård, who had crystals halfway up to his chest. Then he tried to look down at himself, and couldn’t. “Oh sh

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Suggested musical pairing: Thomas Bergersen's "Rada" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEj1cA2wu4k


	16. In the Garden of Broken Glass

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rage, rage, rage against the spreading of the light / Blood and blue flowers / Momentarily functionable / The Ylvis Chord / Summer fun in Oslo #9: Admiring the statues / Nothing happens

When the light overtook him, Bård fled to his memory garden. The trees, the flowers, the ground, the cuffs of his jeans were all coated in brilliant white crystals that hurt to look at. The air felt hot and close. He’d felt his real lungs freeze, so here he drew in great gasps, but it was hard to breathe and hard to think, and when Bård looked down, he saw the crystals creeping up his pant legs, just as he’d seen them back in the bower. 

Neither Finn nor Vegard would be coming for him. They’d succumbed before he had. He’d watched them. He hoped they’d made it to their respective happy places in time. And that they were better at keeping the crystals out than he was.

His limbs were heavy. He’d already been tired, and keeping this little slice of his mind free took huge amounts of effort. It would be so easy to just let go. The white crystal did have a certain purity to it that he could appreciate. It made soft things hard, nebulous things definite, temporary things permanent. Maybe it would be better to rest in frozen perfection. He couldn’t do anything when he was like this, and it was already over for the others. It wouldn’t hurt. 

He could feel right now that he was in mortal danger, but there was something satisfying about it too, the feel of things settled, of a task nearing completion. 

It was time to let go.

His biggest regret was that he wouldn’t have the chance to say goodbye to Maria and the kids, but there might still be Vegard. The link was crystallized over, but he felt for it, expecting to feel the same mingled resignation and relief. 

There was, instead, a thrumming.

It was very very faint: crystals didn’t have a lot of give to them. But Bård could feel an echo of fear and indignation and the sheer unfairness of what was happening. Vegard was upset, Vegard was angry, Vegard was poised on a knife-edge of fury. 

All prospect of peaceful surrender vanished. It was a wonderfully bracing feeling, and Bård noticed, as he looked down, that the progression of crystals up his pant legs had stopped.

He wrenched himself from where he’d stood rooted to the ground--it took three tries--and walked stiffly through the crystal-coated trees, looking for a certain oak. This was the first tree he’d planted, the one that he’d fretted over, and even in the encroaching brightness he found it by its angry reddish glow. He hadn’t wanted anger to be so deeply rooted in his mind, but here it was, and it had come in handy before. It was the only thing in the garden free of crystals. He stumbled up against it and clutched at red and silver bark, also thrumming with life, with rage, and he felt it begin to thrum through him, too. There was an immensely satisfying _crack_ , and the crystals dropped away from him. 

He stood at the tree and summoned his own fury. This was _his_ mind, and he made the rules here. The skies in his memory garden darkened, and the wind picked up. Trees swayed and bent, with the sound of a thousand tiny shatterings, and as the crystals retreated from the garden, he felt clearer, less muddled, less dazzled by the brightness.

He thought for a moment, and contemplated his link with his brother. What else did he have here? He went to a tree with branches that twisted and spiralled, and added its music to his anger. He sent a chord reverberating along the link, vibrating the crystals into shards, and _pulled_.

With a yell, Vegard tumbled out of the angry sky and landed in a bed of tulips. “Whew,” he said, struggling up. “Thanks.” His gaze went to the wall of crystals, now pushed back to the edge of the garden, and he yelled at it. “Rrrrrrrrrggggghhhh!” 

Bård couldn’t help laughing. “What was that?”

“I don’t have a memory garden, and an airplane engine won’t work if it’s even a little bit crystallized, so I thought, how do you keep crystals from forming? You agitate the thing they’re forming in. So I made myself good and mad, and it worked. But I have to keep it up, otherwise my own mind gunks up and I’m stuck in your head forever.” He reached down and scooped up a handful of shards. They started to solidify his hand, and he growled at them, and the crystal retreated. “Plant these.”

“Do I want them growing here?”

“You make the rules here,” Vegard said, sensibly. “Here, don’t you touch them; just scratch out a hole in the ground with your foot.” He put the crystals into the hole Bård had made, and patted the dirt over it with the side of his hand. His palm was bloody. 

Using his regular magic here was weird. The note Bård hummed echoed through the sky, making the air quiver. Nevertheless, he used it to collect the crystal dust embedded in Vegard’s hand.

“You okay?” Bård asked, pulling Vegard to his feet and giving him the longest hug he knew he could stand. 

“Of course. You’re good at getting it all.”

“I meant...”

Vegard met his eyes. “I survived the winter. I can survive anything.”

***

“Okay, this is good, this is good,” Bård said. He scanned the plants around him, taking stock. “Anger works. What else have we got?”

“Music,” Vegard said. 

“Right! I ran a chord along our link to get to you. Maybe we could...” Bård’s shoulders slumped. “That was along the link. Doing that through the air would take really high-frequency sounds we have no hope of making.”

Vegard looked around him. “Really low frequency, actually, and you’re just imagining the air. You have to match the crystal’s resonating frequency, and that’s pretty high for a crystal glass, but a lot lower for thick crystals like these.” He approached the wall of crystal at the perimeter of the clearing, glaring at it, and sang a wandering note that sank, and sank, and sank. Then he stopped, and sang again, several broken notes, until he let out a shout of joy. “Found it!” he crowed. “I can’t do it with my voice, but I can make it resonate with my magic.” He turned back and rejoined Bård in the clearing. “I can make it vibrate a bit,” he clarified sheepishly. “I don’t think I can be loud enough to do much damage.”

“You know what’s even easier for shattering crystal?” Bård asked with a grim smile. “A hammer.” He got a handful of anger, and hurled it at the wall. It cracked, and both brothers let out a shout. Then there was a rushing, and a crackling, and the crack filled in with crystals. In ten seconds, it was impossible to tell that it had ever been broken.

“Let me try,” Vegard said. “This time instead of just the sound, I’ll hit it.” He sang a note again, and made a hurling motion with his hands, and the wall cracked again and filled in. 

“Both together,” Bård said. “Let’s do that thing we did in Øvre Årdal, with the extra range.” They sang the same note, but Bård thought of a higher one and Vegard took a lower one, and as they flexed together, Bård added his anger. This made a wider crack, and as it started to fill in, Vegard cried, “Again! Wait, no, wait wait wait.” He dropped his hands. “We know it works, right? We know we can crack it.”

“Right. So let’s save our energy and decide what to do.”

They sat on the ground and rested. “This was a bad idea,” Vegard said raggedly.

Bård started to laugh. “Getting trapped in _my_ mind, surrounded on all sides by weaponized ancient magic? You’re just working that out now?”

Vegard leaned against the oak tree and closed his eyes. “I meant sitting down. We’ve both had unwisely little amounts of sleep.”

“So let’s get out of here, and then you can get to bed. Did you have any ideas?”

“I thought maybe we could break through to Finn.”

Bård frowned. “But how do _we_ get to _his_ happy place?”

“If we can keep busting things up...” Vegard shrugged uncomfortably. “He’s been in my head a lot this spring. If there’s a path to him, I think I can find him and latch on. But we should look systematically. Like, maybe do the next one in a different direction.”

They got to their feet, and faced the opposite side of the wall of crystal. Vegard sang the low note; Bård sang the high one, amplifying it with music and rage. The crystals fissured momentarily, and then grew back together. 

“Perpendicular?” Bård suggested. They turned ninety degrees, and tried again. Once again, the fissure closed within moments of being opened.

These weren’t their bodies, and sweating in Bård’s memory garden would take effort neither of them could afford right now, but there was a dragging feeling of exhaustion that had nothing to do with crystals and everything to do with repeated use of magic. “One more time?” Vegard suggested thinly.

“One more time,” Bård said, “and then we’re out of directions.”

The force they could apply was less, and this fissure was really more of a hairline crack. With a mighty noise, another fissure met it at a diagonal, forcing the crystals apart. 

“Open, open,” Vegard moaned, sinking to his knees. The fissure widened a little, and now a man-sized shape was moving through it. The crack began to close, and the shape dropped and narrowed and elongated, becoming cat-sized, and then rat-sized, and then mouse-sized. It was nearly to them when the fissure slammed shut, and all that reached Bård’s memory garden was a small rivulet of blood, soaking into the dirt.

“Finn,” Bård said softly, dropping to his knees. If they had just managed to hit it as hard as the other times... if they’d been quicker...

A hand clawed its way out of the blood-soaked earth. Finn pushed himself out of the soil, shaking dirt out of his hair. “Hi. Sorry. Sorry.” He looked down at his mud-smeared naked body. “Oh, for the love of-- I would give you two an enthusiastic thank you hug, but..”

“No need,” Vegard said in a rush. “Are you all right?”

“Not nearly as frustrated as I was this time a minute ago.” Finn frowned at himself. Dirt peeled off him, and he grew a t-shirt and a cranberry-coloured kilt. “It’s not like the stuff from the studio. I can’t break it on my own, not with more all around me. I guess that’s what the tech told me, but... I don’t know, I’d been having really good luck lately. But I crack it, and crystals fill the crack. It’s infuriating.”

“Did you find the others?” Bård asked.

“I found Brynjar. I don’t think he knows I’m here, but... I can _feel_ him. I just can’t get to him.”

“How do we keep the fissures from closing?” Vegard wondered aloud. “We can’t chuck something in there. The crystals would just grow around it.”

“Unless what we put in there would grow too,” Bård said.

“This is an impressive memory garden,” Finn said, “and that soil is _ridiculously_ good, but I’m afraid none of this would withstand grimmurgaldur. Not the way you’re thinking.”

“None of what’s here right now,” Vegard said. “Bård, the crystals we just planted... how long will it take for them to grow?”

Bård shrugged. “A few days, maybe?”

Finn’s face had gone expressionless. “Of course,” he said. “Where?” Vegard pointed. Finn went to his knees, and put a hand on the soil, brow furrowing. “Bård, is it okay if I muck around?”

“Be my guest!”

Finn breathed on the patch of ground and a seedling broke the surface, uncoiling, spreading leaves. The plant burst into radiant white flowers. Blushing, Finn touched a gentle fingertip to the centre of each flower, pollinating them. The flowers withered, giving way to ice-blue crystalline fruits.

“Thank you... thank you,” Finn whispered, detaching one. He got to his feet, swaying a little, and leaned on the brothers. “Can you open up a fissure? In, um...” He pointed. “... _that_ direction?”

They’d had enough of a respite for another attempt. Bård and Vegard sang, hitting the grimmurgaldur with everything they had. It cracked. Finn threw the crystal Bård had grown, and the crack disappeared. 

Now the solid wall of white had a vein of blue.

“Again?” Finn said, plucking another fruit.

The brothers looked at each other, and hit it again. They were already flagging, but now there were two blue veins.

“If I do the next one, can you throw?” Finn asked. 

“You can break it by yourself?” Bård said, incredulous.

“A little,” Finn said. He made a cleaving motion with his hands, and a crack opened up. Vegard threw, and missed, but Bård was a better shot, and as blue crystals were filling the space, Vegard darted closer and picked up his own blue fruit where it had bounced. Close enough to feel the heat baking off the crystals, he winged the fruit into what remained of the crack. There was an explosion of crackles, and the streak of blue widened a little.

In this way they traded off, Finn doing two and the brothers doing two, until the wall of grimmurgaldur directly in front of them was thoroughly marbled.

After his last two turns, Finn stepped back, panting, and motioned for the brothers to do the same. “What do you think?”

“Worst _Frozen_ merchandising _ever_ ,” Bård said. 

“The white goes up a little _too_ quickly and easily, but the accents are a lot of work,” Vegard said. “Plus it ate me and my brother and my cousins. Dice one.”

“I think we’re going to have to let it go,” Finn agreed. “We’re gonna hit this thing and hit it hard, okay?”

Bård flexed his hands, filling them with red and silver fire. Vegard hummed a high note, and thought a very low one. Finn spread his hands, and light stretched and eddied between his fingertips. 

“Three... two... GO.”

The blue crystals meshed with grimmurgaldur, and they withstood grimmurgaldur, but they weren’t grimmurgaldur. Bombarded with fire and sound and force, they crumbled. The grimmurgaldur they were interspersed with collapsed, leaving a corridor.

Finn held out a hand. Suddenly he was holding Brynjar’s walking stick, a finger keeping it upright, while he held his other arm a little out in front of him in a sort of flat-flooted écarté pose. “Come on,” he coaxed. “Come on, you’re here. Thaaaaat’s it.”

A strong wind scoured the tunnel, carrying scraps of something like leaves or leather.

Brynjar, his hair wild, his coat shredded, reassembled in Finn’s arms, clutching at the walking stick, breathing in great hiccupping sobs. 

“Got him?” Vegard said.

Finn nodded. 

Vegard rolled the last of the blue fruits into the corridor, which was narrowing, albeit perhaps a little more slowly than before.

Brynjar struggled to his feet, and faced the solid white wall of grimmurgaldur that rose behind them, but he didn’t seem to be able to look at it straight on. Face twisting, he shook his head and lunged away. He wedged himself under a bush, arms wrapped around his head, keening and rocking. 

Bård stood over him. The sky darkened further, into full night. “I can feel him... pulling,” Bård explained, when Finn and Vegard looked up in alarm. “It was too bright.”

“He looks like he’s going to need a few minutes,” Vegard said.

“I will too,” Finn said. He gestured to the little plant, which had been stripped of its fruits. “You guys rest while you can.” He dropped to his knees beside the plant, made soft coaxing noises, and buried his fingers in the dirt.

***

Brynjar didn’t know how long it was before the swarm of angry bees that had taken up in his skull subsided, and he could think again. The crystals were still all around him, humming at a frequency that set his teeth on edge, but he could move again, and the light no longer lanced right through him.

His power was a shadow of itself. His rootlets were back in his own mind, and they’d been cut off from the outside world for over twenty-four hours now. He was marinating in exhaustion. But Finn was here, alive, and Bård and Vegard were here safe, and that was something. 

He felt Bård’s attention on him, and forced himself to uncover his face and roll over. He was fetched up against some rhododendron bushes on the side of a hill next to a road. The hill, the road, and the trees that grew there were a small clearing in the middle of a sea of impenetrably bright grimmurgaldur. He flopped onto his back and made himself look at the darkened sky instead. His voice was thin and weak. “Cousin Bård?”

Finn and both brothers were hovering over him in an instant. 

He could see their concern. “I are momentarily functionable,” he said, slurring badly. “Many thank yous for your hospitality, Bård. Where stand we?”

“Bård’s figured out a way to adulterate the grimmurgaldur,” Finn explained. “We have to break it up first, and it’s not easy, but it’s working.”

There was something Finn didn’t want him to know, something about the way it was growing, but Brynjar, both starved for contact and desperate to know everything he could about what they faced, looked anyway. “My fault,” he realized, closing his eyes.

Finn put a gentle but firm toe in his side. “Una’s fault.”

“Don’t think of that,” Bård said. 

“Think of it as, it’s spreading more slowly now that you’re out,” Vegard added. “We have a better chance than we did before.”

Brynjar shook his head. “I has little to offer. I are much weakened.”

Bård knelt at his side and handed him an ice-blue crystal with a little green stem attached. “We don’t need you to do god things. We just need you to broadcast.”

***

In the middle of Bård’s memory garden, Bård and Vegard stood across from each other, eyes closed, shoulders loose. The note Vegard sang was low, but not so low as to be uncomfortable on his vocal cords. The note he thought was the resonating frequency of the crystal. Bård sang a slightly higher note, but thought the same one. The resonance established, Vegard flexed into it, and Bård used red and silver anger to amplify it. The ground seemed to buzz under their feet.

Off to the side, Finn added his voice, and his power. Brynjar, leaning heavily on his stick and Finn’s shoulder, sang an overtone that harmonized with the others, his voice hesitant at first but strengthening. His and Finn’s participation notwithstanding, the authorities would call this the Ylvis Chord. And then he reached out, making the crystals vibrate like a speaker, amplifying the sound.

The grimmurgaldur sang back, resonating. Here, where they had only the ideas of bodies and didn’t need to breathe, the four of them could hold the note indefinitely. The edges of the grimmurgaldur blurred with the vibration. 

There was a great shift and an apocalyptic noise. The walls dulled, their radiance dimmed by webs of cracks.

The four men let their voices die. Finn prodded Brynjar, who changed gears and broadcasted something different, now: the shape and configuration of the blue crystals. These were so easy that a single human could make them, and the grimmurgaldur, building itself back up, readily adopted the new, less demanding structure.

The garden was ringed with a solid wall of ice blue. “Now we just have to break _that_ , right?” Bård said. 

“Break,” Brynjar echoed indistinctly, and the other three caught him as he fell.

***

The sun was low in the sky, and floodlights had just been set up, when the sound started—a low humming, coming from the mass of crystals. The dálki moved their tents further back, and hustled the remaining civilians--Una and Calle and Henning, and the newly arrived Melantha--further out of the area. The hum built until the ground shook, and then ended with a mighty _crack_ as the crystals split.

The mass had shifted and dimmed. Someone turned on the floodlights. As dálki officers approached cautiously, the cracks sealed over, but the crystals were a pale blue now. And then everything went silent and still, and no one seemed to have any idea what it meant.

Melantha got up and stalked closer. “My lady,” an officer said, taking her arm and gently but firmly drawing her back to the picnic table that had been set up for the others, frustratingly far away. 

“Isn’t someone going to take a closer look?” Melantha demanded. 

“Send the changeling in,” Una suggested. The temperature had fallen somewhat, and one of the officers had given her a uniform jacket and a hot chocolate. “He might as well make himself useful.” 

“He’s not expendable!” Calle protested. 

“It’s okay,” Henning said, standing. “Finn saved my life. Bård and Vegard were kind to me even after I tried to hurt them. If I can help them, I want to help them. And if...”

“They’re dead,” Una said, for the fourth or fifth time since Melantha had arrived, and for the fourth or fifth time Melantha felt like testing the strength of those ancient bones. “They were brave and foolish, and now they’re dead.”

Calle glared at her, and stood. “I’m going too. Ylvis are my friends, and Finn saved my life too.”

“If you’re going, I’m going,” Melantha said, leaping to her feet. 

“If something happens to you,” Una said, “your little girl becomes an orphan.”

Melantha closed her eyes. This was true.

“ _None of you_ are going,” the officer said. “Believe me, we learned our lesson about that. We’re getting a team of professionals together.”

It was about half an hour later that the noises started. Right then, a group of three officers, the foremost one wearing a salmon-class shield donated by the Magimuseet, was creeping forward. The sound began as a soft crunching from beyond the crystal-coated threshold, and became ringing rhythmic thumps. The officers hunkered down, drawing their burners. 

From within Hagefestning there was an equine scream, reverberating oddly through the crystal. A shadow appeared within, and then a large head ducked in order to clear the threshold. 

“Sleipnir!” Melantha cried, running forward. 

“My lady!” one of the officers said, but they made only half-hearted attempts to restrain her, and she shook them off. Henning and Calle hung back for a moment, and then followed. 

Sleipnir stamped impatiently. Blood streamed out of cuts on her legs and flanks. When Melantha reached the threshold and the first crystals she hesitated, but the horse jerked her head in a come-along-then motion.

The air here was hot and close and disturbingly still. The crystals that encrusted everything shone with their own bright blue light. It wasn’t as blindingly brilliant as grimmurgaldur, but it was bright enough to confuse the eye, banishing shadows and distorting depth perception. 

There were four person-sized pillars of blue crystal in the main room. Sleipnir led Melantha to a smaller one with six more, and the blood-streaked remains of her own crystal shell. Melantha thought she understood. Sleipnir neighed, and aimed a kick at the base of the formation. It detached from the floor, and a web of cracks appeared. 

Melantha looked for something hard and, finding nothing, pulled off her nursing bra and wrapped it around her hand for some protection. As she used her magic and her fabric-protected fingers to peel the blue crystals away, Sleipnir went to the others, kicking them free for Henning and Calle. Hooves wouldn’t do the fine work, but they could at least get it started. 

Melantha could see very early on that she wasn’t freeing any of the brothers, but she kept going, uncovering a pantsuit and a small rounded body. She was able to lift the rest of the shell off the woman’s head in one big piece, and Ida Månedal drew in a gasp and collapsed in Melantha’s arms. 

Calle had followed her lead, taking off his t-shirt and winding it around one hand, and was now thumping the base of one of the tallest pillars, but now he bolted to his feet. “Sweet Jesus, that’s the Prime Minister!”

“I don’t think so,” Melantha said. “I think it’s Finn’s friend Ida. Here, help me get her outside.”

Calle took Ida’s left side, and helped Melantha carry her out. “I think you’re right,” he agreed finally. “Her hair smells different.” They laid her gently on the grass and made sure the dálki officers were seeing to her before they went back in.

While Calle had been gone, the tall pillar he’d been chiselling at had shed crystals of its own accord. As he and Melantha watched, it hopped to the side and collided with the wall, smashing to reveal a large, solidly built white man with his hair and beard in long light brown ringlets, his elven-cut linen shirt bloody and shredded. He tore off his shirt and wrapped it around one fist, spun, and started punching the third pillar.

A fourth pillar simply exploded, showering them all in blue crystals. A beautiful, petite young white woman stood there, bosom heaving under her tattered white robe. Her arms were covered in scratches and gouges. She took off a heeled shoe and joined Henning at the pillar he was hacking away at, so Calle and Melantha shared the sixth. 

They had uncovered a pair of black jeans and a dark blue button-up shirt by the time the woman and Henning sprang back from the pillar they were working on. That one split, the pieces falling off a tall, muscled Black man with long hair, a short beard, and luminous golden eyes that darted around for only a second before, wordlessly, he joined Calle and Melantha at their work. They uncovered Finn’s friend Zweinar, who was dull-eyed and unresponsive. While the giant and Calle carried him out, the only pillar left in this room toppled to the floor and shattered. Brynjar Kvam was bloodied and quite unconscious, and the Black man lifted him tenderly.

Melantha followed them as far as the larger room. “Brynjar?” she said, touching his face. He didn’t respond. “Brynjar?” 

There were four pillars left, all of them in this bigger room. Sleipnir was delicately chipping away at one. 

“Sleipnir? Do you know which one of these is Finn?”

Sleipnir turned and shook her mane before going back to the pillar she’d chosen. Melantha selected another, starting at the bottom and working the pieces loose. Henning picked the third pillar, and the petite white-robed woman--who really wasn’t as young as she had first looked--the fourth. Soon Calle and the two large men joined them. 

The first one they uncovered, standing a little apart from the others, was a dark-haired lios alfr, unresponsive. The crystals had shattered his glasses. 

Next was Vegard. His suit was shredded, and his knuckles and lips were bleeding. He didn’t fall when they uncovered him, but he stared blankly ahead. “Vegard?” Melantha said, waving her hand in front of his eyes.

He focused on her.

“Vegard, do you know where Finn is?”

He frowned, and blinked hard a couple of times. There was a soft noise from the smallest of the two remaining pillars, the one that Calle and Henning had taken. 

“Even if he knew the answer, that’s too complicated for someone in his condition,” said the petite woman. Really, Melantha was realizing, she was more middle aged than anything. “Vegard, is it? Go outside and wait for us.”

Vegard turned around and shuffled out.

Calle and Henning’s pillar suddenly bounded up in the air and hopped towards Melantha, making noises. “Mmmm! Mm!” The sounds rose in pitch as it overbalanced. Melantha tried to grab it, but it only snagged on her nursing bra, breaking into pieces as it hit the ground.

She went to her knees and lifted off the largest of the top pieces. “Ouch,” Finn said, beaming up at her. 

She hauled him to his feet and hugged him, kissing him again and again, burying her face in his curls, breathing in his scent. “I thought you were dead,” she whispered against his neck. “I thought you were dead.”

“I’m here,” he said, wrapping his arms around her. “It’s okay. I’m here. How’s Riri?”

Melantha wrinkled her nose. “With Mom. I didn’t want to, but...”

“Believe me, I get it,” he said, stepping aside to let Sleipnir edge past him. “Even your mom is better than this stuff.”

***

“Ready?” Calle got his fingers under the right side of the last crystal shell, and Henning got under the left. “One... two...” They pulled again. This time, instead of a few pieces cracking off in finger-shredding shards, the upper part split in two, getting Bård’s head free.

Bård’s eyelids fluttered, and then he kept staring straight ahead.

And that... that was enough for Calle. The tears came, and they wouldn’t stop. Both brothers. What was he going to tell their wives? Their kids? He’d wanted to touch magic so badly, and now... He folded up, hugging himself tightly. “This is my fault,” he told Henning. “All my fault.”

Henning squeezed his shoulders. He managed to hit all the muscles that Calle wished people would hit when they squeezed his shoulders. Then he turned Calle around and coaxed him to uncurl and looked into his eyes. “Not your fault. She took advantage of all of us.”

Another hand fell heavy on his shoulder. “He’s right,” Vegard’s voice said, and Calle took a moment to realize that it was Finn. “Also, look.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Suggested musical pairing: Tony Levin's "Ever the Sun Will Rise" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIYZjEXbs28


	17. Unbound

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A kiss for Brighid / With a cherry on top / The lifesaver / Brynjar says nothing / Living arrangements / Look what the cat threw up / Thus spake Minerva / The mareritt feast / Not safe at all / Still out there

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the late update. I was running on 2.5 hours of sleep, my mom had pneumonia, my aunt died, and I found out that an online friend had died last month, and I just sort of went kaboom.

Calle froze. Over Henning’s shoulder, he could see Bård’s nostrils flaring. 

Bård’s face was still expressionless, but now the muscles in his jaw tightened. Then his lips moved, and his face twitched. His breath whistled in through clenched teeth. His eyes brightened, his face twisted into a snarling grin, and he opened his mouth. “RRRRRRUUUAAAGGGGHHHHHHH!”

From outside the mouth of the bower, there was an answering “GRRRRRAAAAAAARRRRR!”

“There you have it,” Bård said in conversational tones. “Agitation. Good evening, Larsen. Henning. Lovebirds.”

Calle went weak with relief. “I thought we’d lost you both. You weren’t... you weren’t _home_.”

“We were home all right,” Vegard said cheerfully, from behind him. “We were hiding out in Bård’s garden.”

“We had to kick open the doors and sweep the crystals out of the hallways,” Bård explained. 

“You do realize,” said the strange white-robed old woman, “that this is _unprecedented_. Grimmurgaldur is famously impenetrable.” 

“It took all four of us working together for hours,” Vegard pointed out, “and that was just to change it into something we _could_ break.”

“Get used to it, then. There are some sites around Europe where your services will be in demand.” She smiled a sunken, toothless smile. “Neither of you boys would happen to have a kiss for an old woman, would you?”

Vegard and Bård shared a look. Then Vegard pulled her into a quick, firm embrace and kissed her. When he disengaged, in her place was a radiantly beautiful young maiden. He gazed into her limpid blue eyes and said, “It looked like Erling and Ida and Zweinar were going to need help decrystallizing. We should see what we can do.”

“Nice boy,” the woman observed as she watched him go out into the floodlit night, and she sounded like she meant it. “A bit oblivious.”

“A lot married,” Calle told her.

“I’m a goddess,” she said dryly. “I inflame the minds of men with divine inspiration, and suffuse their bodies with healing and vitality. I wield the smith’s hammer and the fiery arrow of justice.”

“Yeah, um, he’s not really into that,” Bård said. “But we have a cousin you might like.”

“I know,” she said, her voice gentle, her posture a little defeated. “And I do. But I’ve had a harrowing couple of days, and I wanted to prove to myself that I’ve still got it.”

A dálki officer poked her head inside. “Good to hear, Lady Brighid, because we need it out here.”

***

The people rescued from Hagefestning were laid out in a little line on the lawn. A pair of dálki officers were interviewing Váli as a third wound bandages around his knuckles. Two more, with gloves and flashlights and little pads of paper, were examining the unconscious. Five officers were headed into the mass of crystals carrying hammers and crowbars.

Una knelt in front of Erling, prodding his face and making fretful noises. “I’ll have to tell his parents,” she said, looking up at Finn. “It doesn’t wear off, not directly from the seed crystals. What am I going to tell his parents?”

“That you screwed up,” said Finn, tightly. He and Melantha had joined Sleipnir and Nergal at Brynjar’s side. “You decided people didn’t know what was good for them, you treated them like objects, you used an ancient weapon entrusted to you to silence anyone who tried to stop you--”

“Not to mention a bunch of innocent children,” Melantha put in. 

Finn’s jaw tightened, and he shot her a look of horror before returning his gaze to Una. “--and it backfired. You’re lucky it wasn’t worse.”

“It’s not like it was,” Una lamented, her thin shoulders slumped. “Back then, people were willing to make sacrifices for what they believed in. And we got things done.”

“It’s _not_ like it was,” Brighid agreed, dropping to her knees beside Erling. “And you should thank the earth and sky and water and every god in your pantheon that it has changed, Una Fairhair.”

“I am not unsympathetic,” Nergal murmured. He had Brynjar’s head on his lap, and was stroking the sleeping god’s hair. “War makes things simple. It makes soft things hard, and our small troubles pale. It gives us something to rail against. But it is not a better existence, and the ways of war have no place in peacetime.”

“I am truly sorry for what I did to the three of you,” Una said, lowering her head. “And Sleipnir. Name my penance.”

Brighid raised her voice, projecting it over the small crowd. “It’s not for us to say, Una. Gods are no longer the arbiters of justice. The law is.”

One of the dálki officers took the hint and approached, offering Una a hand up. “You should probably come back to the tent, my Lady. We’ll get your house sorted out for you.”

Brighid watched them go. Then she smiled down at Erling, kissed her fingertip, and applied it to his forehead. 

He surged awake with a shout, and clutched at the nearest warm body, which happened to be Finn’s. “It was eating me,” he said, eyes wide. “It ate me.” He seemed to recognize Finn and Brynjar, and drew back. “I’m sorry... I’m so sorry.”

Finn’s smile froze for a second before brightening. “Forgiven. Although I would be happy if you didn’t do it again. To anyone. Are _you_ all right?”

“I-I won’t. And I am,” Erling said. “Una?”

“The dálki are looking after her.” Finn patted Erling’s shoulder. “They’ll probably want to talk to you too.”

Erling nodded. Brighid helped him sit up, and pointed him to the dálki tent, and he got up tottered off.

“Brig,” Nergal rumbled, golden eyes dancing, “you are _petty_.”

“I am,” she said airily, rising in a single fluid motion. “And now I’d better look after those two others.”

Henning had positioned himself between Ida and Zweinar. He held their hands, and looked levelly at anyone who dared approach. Calle, meanwhile, was doing much the same thing with Bård and Vegard, hovering behind where they stood as the dálki asked questions. He was unable to protect them in any meaningful way, but he was making it clear that he was there and he was watching. 

Brighid knelt at Zweinar’s side, returning Henning’s gaze. Her lips curled in a smile as she kissed first the tip of one index finger, then the other, and decrystallized both changelings at once. They both bolted upright, Zweinar with a little cry, and looked all around. 

From where he knelt on the ground, Finn met Ida’s frantic eyes and smiled, and gave her what he hoped was a reassuring thumbs up. But now Henning had his hands on each of their shoulders, and was talking soothingly, and a flutter in the corner of Finn’s vision indicated that his attention was better spent on Vegard at the moment.

“Just one last question,” the blond dálki officer was saying. Vegard was backing away from him without trying to look like he was backing away. “We’ve got a liberated changeling, and a man who’s been convicted of liberating changelings. I was wondering if you could tell me about that.”

Vegard looked pained, and shook his head. “But he deserves to be free,” he said from behind his hand. “They all do.”

Finn was beside him in a bound. “That was me. You want me.”

“Finn?” Melantha shrilled.

“But I didn’t use blood,” he told the officer. “It’s not blood magic. I used fruit juice. There should be a suitcase of mine in the main tent. It’s very distinctive. It has cherries in it. Also, um, the Circlet of Sælu, which I guess can just be returned to wherever one gets it from. But yeah. Cherries.”

The dálki officer spoke into a skrib. The transmission was encoded, but Finn saw his lips shape the word “suitcase.” “Breathe,” Finn told Vegard.

Vegard nodded, vigorously rubbing his arms. 

Calle cleared his throat. “Are you done with them?” he asked the small cluster of dálki. “Can Bård and Vegard call their wives and tell them they’re still alive?”

“What?” one of the officers said. “Uh, yeah, for now. Don’t run off yet, but go call.”

Melantha handed Bård her phone, and he and Vegard shuffled away. In the harsh floodlights, both of them looked haggard and hollow-eyed. They sat down on the other side of Sleipnir, who nuzzled Vegard’s curls before turning her attention back to Brynjar. 

A new officer returned with the cartoon suitcase. “Finn Weber?” she said. “We’ve got these cherries you were telling us about. Can you show us how they work?”

“Show you?” Finn echoed. 

Her badge said she was Officer Standhaftig. She handed him the cherries. “You told us this is what you used. I want to see it.”

Finn put a cherry in his mouth, trying not to gag at the coppery taste. He knelt between Ida and Zweinar. “Is this okay?” he asked.

Zweinar nodded. Finn put a finger to his lips and painted on the glyph, in cherry juice. He breathed magic into it, and Zweinar collapsed bonelessly into Henning’s arms.

“Interesting,” said Officer Standhaftig. “Can I see that again, please?”

“Seriously?” Finn said. 

“If it’s not blood magic, it’s not illegal, and it’s not draining your energy. So let’s see it one more time.”

Ida had curled up on the ground, her back to them. “Ida?” Finn said, gently touching her shoulder.

She wouldn’t look at him. Her voice was thick with tears. “After what I did to you? I don’t deserve it. I don’t even know if it would work.”

“I told him to do it, ma’am,” said Officer Standhaftig. “You’d be helping him keep out of jail.”

Finn frowned at the officer. “Don’t think of that, Ida. This is your choice, and I know how big it is. I’m not going to force it on you, but it’s here if you want it.”

Ida rolled over. “I’ll do it for you, Finn Weber. Because I owe you.” She waved away his protests. “Maybe I’ll turn out like you. Maybe I’ll learn to love it.”

***

The sun was well and truly down, the sky the deep and depthless blue that marked an Oslo summer night. The air was filled with the sound of dálki chipping away at the inside of Hagefestning. Zweinar and Ida and Henning--no longer subject to impounding, or to the compulsions that Una had put on them--were under blankets, sipping sweet tea and talking with officers. Unsealed. Finn had been adamant.

At the edge of the pool of light, Sleipnir sat. Bård had used what he’d gleaned from Vegard’s magic classes to perfect the healing spell he’d learned from the selkies on Runde. He’d managed to heal the worst of the cuts Sleipnir had gotten battering herself against the crystals, but he tired long before he was finished. Vegard was leaning against her, running his fingers up and down her flank, occasionally rubbing his face against her neck. She was breathing with him. 

After a time, the brothers looked at each other, and peeked over Sleipnir’s back, at her other side. Brynjar still slept, his kommune-blond hair fanned out on Nergal’s lap. 

Nergal saw them watching, and smiled gently. “I think he’s just exhausted. We all are. I have encountered less pleasant methods of confinement in my time, but not many, and I understand that he is sensitive in ways that make it worse.”

“And he was broadcasting all that time, and then he changed all that grimmurgaldur,” Bård murmured, coming around to sit by Brynjar. “No wonder.”

“I’ll be back,” Vegard said, and returned with a dálki-issue first aid kit. He knelt and handed Bård a handful of alcohol wipes and bandaids. Bård wiped his own hands, first, and then he went to work cleaning and bandaging Brynjar’s hands and some of the nastier gouges on his face and ears. Vegard poised over one of the cuts on Nergal’s arms with an alcohol wipe. “Is it okay if I do this?”

“I would be most grateful,” Nergal told him.

Brynjar pulled his hand away from Bård, and his eyelashes fluttered. “Stings,” he whimpered.

“There, there,” Nergal rumbled, smoothing Brynjar’s hair. He left the hair sticky with blood, and with a sigh, offered that hand to Vegard. “You’re safe. You’re free. Your cousins are taking care of you. Of both of us, actually.”

“Are you two...” Vegard waggled his hand. “...a thing?” 

Nergal smiled. “We are each of us many things. To each other we are friends, executive board members, and occasional lovers.”

Brynjar favoured him with a sleepy smile, and then sucked in air again as Bård disinfected another cut. 

“Is it serious?” Bård asked. 

“Probably not, but I are overstimulated,” Brynjar murmured. “I has been a long day alone and screaming in the spiky brightness. I needing some days of dark, and softness, and quiet, and company.”

Sleipnir turned to whuffle his hair.

“Finn,” Brynjar said suddenly, starting up, eyes opening wide.

Finn knelt on the other side of Bård. “Right here, buddy. Glad you’re awake.”

Brynjar curled one arm around his belly, and used the other to take Finn’s hand. He looked at it for a second, frowned at it purposefully, and then sighed, letting his face relax. He plucked an alcohol wipe from Bård, but he couldn’t open the package, and he sank back down, looking defeated. “Thy hands. I can do nothing. But I are so happy to see you...” He glanced up at Melantha, nearby. “...up and around. I has messages for you. I maked visits to your family. Your pollen children wishing me to say, ‘Hi, Dad.’ Your stone children wishing me to say, ‘Hi, Mom.’”

Finn grinned, and his eyes grew just a little bit brighter at this. “Thank you. And thank you for looking after me. You were a real lifesaver.”

“You’re just saying that because I haved a hole in my middle.”

***

It was midnight before the dálki allowed them to go, after getting all of their statements. Finn had flatly refused to allow the dálki to use the Seal of Luotettavuus on any of them, and a couple of the officers, including Randiel, had grumbled, but it had all turned out all right. Finn himself had told as much of the truth as he dared. “The attack on Brynjar was very hard on me,” he said. “I was very unwell for a few days. Brynjar looked after me the best he could. But I had to find my own way back to Midgard. Pure luck that I found where Una was keeping Calle.”

When they were finished with him, Melantha handed him a bag. “Here. When I called them back, they said that if I didn’t need to come and identify your body, I needed to come and bring you some clothes. Change and let’s get out of here.” 

He nodded, and contemplated the tent several hundred metres away, but in the end he just drew a veil around himself on the spot, to change into the jeans and the black turtleneck she’d brought. There was a jacket too, and she’d included his spare glasses in the bag, bless her.

He put them on, and saw Brynjar watching him with the grey eye. He didn’t say a thing--only smiled.

“Thank you,” Finn said, with great gravity and sincerity. “Now shut up.”

“I has said nothing, brother Finn.”

“Good choice. If nobody says anything, then nobody has to lie. Right?”

“As you wish, brother Finn.”

Finn banished the veil, emerging with the crimson dinner jacket slung over one shoulder and his hands swathed in gauze. He gave Melantha his winningest smile and said, “I am starving, and I’m _not_ cooking.”

***

“You’re free to go,” the dálki officer told the changelings.

“Thanks,” Ida said numbly. Then, “Go _where_?”

“I have a room,” Zweinar said. “I can put you two up for a little while, anyway.”

“There’s also Wulverhuset,” Henning offered. “I’ve been staying there. They’re good people, and if I explain, I think they might let me out of the basement.”

A whinny split the night. They looked over reflexively, to find Brynjar’s hand, bandaged, limply waving them over. 

“I ache in brain and body and soul,” Brynjar told them. “I are ready to go home.”

Ida knelt. “Mr. Kvam. There are just… no words to say how very sorry I am for all I’ve put you through.”

Brynjar patted her arm. “Be not sorry, then, if it so stubbornly refuses expressification. Come to Asgard, you and Zweinar and Henning. It are not luxury, but there are plenty of room.”

She turned away from him to hide tears. “You’re very kind, Mr. Kvam.”

Brynjar’s energy was at a low ebb, and his magic with it, but there was nothing wrong with his eye. “There are nothing to forgive, belovedest, but if it eases you, you has my forgiveness. I know what it are like to be thrust into the world with nothing to your name but freedom. I know we has to take care of each other.”

“I’m staying,” Zweinar said, eyes shining. “Here, I mean. In Midgard. Your offer means a great deal, and thank you. But there are a thousand places I passed, or things I saw free people doing, where I thought of how lucky they were, how I would love to do that if I only dared. So now I can dare.”

Ida’s crying died down to shuddering breaths. “I could get a library card. I could grow my hair out again. I could learn to be _me_. Do you think I could get a Frisbee somewhere?”

Brynjar patted her arm. “I has friends in government. We’ll sees what we can do.”

“I’d like to take you up on it,” Henning said, gesturing nervously around him. “On Asgard. I don’t have any good memories of this place. Maybe I could come back someday, but I want to, I want to work out what kind of person I am first, without all these things that remind me of the worst time in my life.”

Nergal cleared his throat delicately. “Could you stand a bit of company from me as well, Brynjar? Just for a few days?”

Brynjar gazed up into his face. “‘Could you stand,’ he asking, as if his presence are not comfort and delight itself.”

“You’re going to need some help around the house until you mend thoroughly. And… as you said, it would be good to be somewhere dark and soft and not alone.”

“Ah,” Brighid said, a little sadly.

Brynjar groped for her hand, drew it to his lips. “I has room, Brighid. Váli?”

Váli heaved himself to his feet. “Thank you, but… my wife is probably beside herself, and that’s my job. I should go.”

“Would you like to split a cab?” Zweinar asked, patting his pockets and eventually pulling out a wallet. He and Ida scrambled up. The three of them walked off together, discussing the best route.

Sleipnir shook herself, and got gingerly to her feet. It took her a couple of tries. “Oh, my lovely,” Brynjar crooned when he saw the cuts on her legs. He planted his walking stick in the ground and used it, shakily and with great care, to lever himself into a standing position. “Are you sure?”

She lipped his hair, and lowered herself on her eight legs. Henning helped Brynjar, Nergal, and Brighid onto her back before climbing up. She took a couple of careful steps, and then stepped sideways, out of Midgard entirely.

***

“The fancy guy says we’re free to go,” Calle said. “Let’s get out of here. You two look like something the cat threw up.”

“Ha ha,” Vegard said, voice ragged with fatigue. He frowned at the bandaged hand Calle offered him, looked at his own bandaged hand, and sang a note. He rose smoothly into the air, and put his feet down. It was easy to tell when he ran out of steam; he staggered a little. Then he offered a forearm to Bård, who hooked his own forearm around it and pulled himself up.

“I bet you have questions,” Bård said as they walked out of the Botanical Gardens together. A dálki sentry lifted the barrier to let them pass. 

“Tonnes. I just… thank you. And I'm sorry.” Calle's voice caught. “I didn't know that would happen.”

Bård rubbed his shoulder. “Calle, that wasn't your fault.”

“Possibly we're the ones who should be apologizing to you, for getting you mixed up in this,” Vegard said, “except that we didn't do anything either. Una was targeting us. And if she hadn’t gotten to us through you, it would have been through someone else.”

“I'm sorry we tried to keep you out of it,” Bård said. “Maybe if we'd included you earlier...”

Vegard suddenly wasn’t with them anymore, and when they looked back, he had planted himself at the entrance of a pub. “I don't know about you two, but I want food and a good stiff drink,” he said, leaning against the doorway as if it were the only thing holding him up. 

“Food,” Calle agreed. The last thing he'd eaten was that pastry that Finn had handed him. And before that, a mouthful of blood-flavoured cherry. And before _that_ … “What's today, anyway?”

“July 21,” Bård said, as they followed a server to a table.

“Jesus,” Calle said softly. “I haven't had a proper meal in a month.”

***

Melantha bought dinner--Finn's wallet was gone, consumed in balefire so that he couldn’t be identified--at Smaragd, the third best elven restaurant in the city. They got home at three in the morning, giggly and a little drunk.

Melantha had tried her key in the lock three times when the door flew open of its own accord, and they stood in the stairwell like a couple of guilty schoolchildren, but it wasn’t Ariadne; it was a handsome but frowsy lios alfr, clothing rumpled, light brown hair in disarray. 

“Petriel?” Melantha said.

“Hey. Sorry. Fell asleep on the couch.” He stuck out a hand for Finn to shake, and looked at him, and his eyes went wide. “Bloody hell! Sorry. Melantha told me you worked in television, but I had no idea... I was going to say I’ve heard a lot about you. I... have seen a lot of you, too. Big fan. It’s really good to meet you. I’m glad you’re okay.”

“Likewise,” said Finn. “Are you Ariadne’s boyfriend?”

Melantha snorted, and Petriel clamped a hand over his mouth. “No. _No._ She called me up around nine. Said she thought it was time for her to go home, and if she hurried she could catch the nine thirty-eight to Frederikstad. Asked if I’d watch the baby. I said yes, and asked no further questions.” He ushered them in, stifling a yawn. “She ate at ten and again at... mmm... 1:30. Riri, not Ariadne. She was fussy, so we walked around the kitchen for an hour. And then I read her some legal briefs, and that put her to sleep. Then they put me to sleep. Sorry.”

“Well hey,” Finn said, trying to keep the disappointment out of his voice, “can we make you up a bed on the couch?”

Petriel grinned and shook his head. “I’ll get a cab.” He padded out to the living room and grabbed a sheaf of papers, and kicked his shoes on. “I’m sure you two have a _lot_ to celebrate. Is it okay if I keep in touch?”

“Of course!” Melantha said. 

“Text us when you get home safely,” Finn added.

“And Petriel,” Melantha said, as he was closing the door on them, “thank you.”

As she engaged the locks, Finn was already halfway up the stairs. When she caught up to him, he was in the nursery, beaming down at Riri.

“Hello, sweetling,” he whispered. “Papa’s home now, and everything’s going to be all right.”

She stirred a little, and yawned, and reached out. He put his finger out, and she grabbed it and squeezed. Then her grip relaxed, and she smacked her lips, and did not rouse as her parents tiptoed out.

***

Sleipnir was slower than usual, and Brynjar could see her pain and exhaustion. When they reached Bifrost, with its bright light, Brynjar heard her groan softly. He stroked her mane and patted her neck.

When she brought them all into Valaskjolf, where he’d made his home, he fed her apples and pears and sugar cubes while the wolves snuggled up to her and the ravens cleaned her wounds. He had no soup in the stasis chamber, but he had a spaghetti sauce that he was rather proud of, and he served it up to Henning and Nergal and Brighid with bread. 

When everyone was fed, he turned on his gaming console and made them play video games. He insisted, although he himself was pale and swaying. “It are good for trauma,” he said, pressing a controller into Brighid’s reluctant, gauze-swathed hands. “I has read that it interferes with the encodifying of memories and preventates flashbacks.”

Sleipnir eschewed her usual web in the corner for a spot on the floor, in front of a hearth they’d let grow cold because no one felt like extra heat just now. Fenrir licked her face and lay down next to her, and the gods spent the night huddled together between them, minds and magic intertwined. The nightmares of gods are heady things, and the mareritt, drawn across Bifrost by the excess of terror, fed well that night.

Henning tried to sleep and did not. Brynjar had offered him the hammock Sleipnir had once woven for Vegard, and he tried it for awhile, but after a few hours he got up, and crept out the massive doorway into the eternal sunshine of Asgard. He sought the counsel of his own kind, and many hours later, it was Freki who found him fast asleep among the pines, with tear tracks on his cheeks.

***

They ordered Hansas for Bård and Calle, a gin and tonic for Vegard, and nachos. None of them had phones, so they took turns on a pay phone in the cellar. Kaja sounded pleased to hear from Calle, but not worried--maybe just a little bewildered when he told her how much he’d missed her, and that tomorrow night he was taking her and Knut someplace nice.

“We were on a grey road,” Calle told them, as their drinks were delivered. “Finn looked like that cartoon cat we made up in the fifth season. I think… when he first went to rescue me, he wanted to look like someone I’d trust.”

“He couldn’t have just looked like Vegard?” Bård said with a weary smile.

“He looked like me last time,” Vegard said, propping up his head. Lifting his glass appeared to be too much trouble, because he was sipping his gin and tonic through a plastic coffee stirrer. “Didn’t help.”

“Did she hurt you?” Bård asked gently.

“What? Una? No, not at all,” Calle said. “I didn’t understand what was happening. I… I thought I was gaming.” He shook his head. “All this time I’ve been jealous of you guys for getting to go on magical adventures, and when I get my own, I spend it playing video games.”

“Fix that next time,” Vegard mumbled.

“What, seriously?”

“If you want nothing more to do with it, we’ll understand,” Bård said. “Of course we’ll understand. But otherwise…”

“Pretty pointless to keep it away from you,” Vegard finished, stifling a yawn. A server put a plate of nachos in front of him, and he startled, then laughed weakly and started scooping up cheese with a chip. “We thought we could keep you safe, but that wasn’t safe at all.”

“I have to think about it,” Calle said. “A large part of me is punching the air and yelling, and part of me... wants to see how things are after this. How my family is. Whether I can afford to do this again.”

“I think if we worked in construction or something, we’d be fired now,” Vegard said.

“If we worked in construction,” Bård said, chasing a black olive around the platter until he gave up and went for a jalapeño ring instead, “none of this would ever have happened.” 

Some minutes later, Vegard was stumblingly explaining waveforms and the Stone of Sælu when Calle noticed that Bård had dozed off in the corner of the booth. He laughed softly and said, “I think I’d better get you two home, hadn’t I?”

Vegard sat up and rubbed his face. “Yeah,” he said, stifling a yawn.

***

The cab took Vegard home first. He didn’t have Bård’s gift of being able to nod off in a single bound. He was still carrying on conversations, but his eyes were closed and the amount of sense he was making varied wildly. Calle, in the front seat, asked the cab to wait until he got inside.

Vegard shuffled up to the step. The front door opened. The motion seemed to surprise him, and he tripped up the front step and collapsed into Helene’s arms, giggling. Her smile was radiant. She dismissed the cab with a little wave before drawing him inside. 

Bård, already fast asleep, was next. Calle prodded him when they pulled up in front of the house. “It’s on this,” Bård said, handing the cabbie his credit card. He forestalled Calle’s protest with a look. “What were _you_ gonna pay with?” He reached into the front seat and squeezed Calle’s arm as he slipped out. “Good show, Larsen.”

Once again, Calle asked the cab to wait until Bård was inside. When the door closed and the porch light turned off, leaving Bård’s head and shoulders silhouetted in the door’s glass, the cab turned around and started to pull away. Calle watched over his shoulder as a shape flitted across the lit front window, and then there was another head and shoulders, slightly smaller, opposite Bård’s. He grinned as the two silhouettes joined, and then the cab was driving him home to his own wife, his own home, his own family. 

He let his eyes rove over the lit streets, the darkened shops, the crowds of revellers, the shadows. He’d been away for a long time, and the sight of it all was a sweet relief. “Do you see something out there?” the cabbie asked.

“No,” Calle said. “Nothing unusual.” He wasn’t going to see anything, not without help, but it was all there. He was sure it was there. 

“Same old same old?” the cabbie asked.

“Same old same old,” Calle lied.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Suggested musical pairing: Paul Van Dyk's "Spellbound," featuring Jan Johnston - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hD3skh6lfGI


	18. Ripples and Waves

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How it worked out / The unveiling / Lost and found

Una Fairhair, lawyered to the teeth, with the press on her side, pled guilty to two charges of assault and one charge of improper storage of a hazardous substance. In light of her great age, she was sentenced to house arrest in Hagefestning. 

Her personal assistant Erling was sentenced to Innilokun Ríki for seven years.

The changelings Una had made were not charged, which in certain quarters was greeted with outrage. The week after the Peace Division's Ljón made the announcement, the Golds, backed by certain of First Magister Nils Tistel’s Indigos, introduced a bill that required changelings to be registered and safely stored, their personal details filed, their movements tracked. 

The grimoire shop suggested to Anna that the support group meetings stop. Not because the owner, a nisse named Heather, had any objection to changelings, but because she couldn’t guarantee their safety from dálki raids or vigilantes, and she said she didn’t want to see them caught up. 

Officer Toril Standhaftig rang Anna to say that she’d had a hard drive failure, and she’d lost a lot of records. And if Anna herself needed anything to do with computers, she had the name of a naiad who, apropos of nothing, specialized in super-secure anonymous chat rooms. 

Newspapers carried the stories of people who had been wronged by changelings--scammed by them, seduced by them, wounded or threatened at the behest of people who used changelings as muscle. They were a topic on the Alpha network’s _Nå Frykt Dette_ , and shows like it around Scandinavia. Finn was never sure if the _Invasion of the Bodysnatchers_ marathon was directed at people like him-- the channel it was on didn’t say anything, but they didn’t show a lot of human programming, and here were three human movies in a row--but he had a little crush on young Donald Sutherland, and that took the sting out of things somewhat. 

A lios alfr professor from NUA, putting the finishing touches on several years of work anyway, rushed her book to press to take advantage of the _zeitgeist_. Her agent booked her on a number of national, regional, and local talk shows. When _News from Nobody_ asked if she was available, the agent sounded surprised and a trifle wary, but he returned with an acceptance.

***

“I taked the liberty of producing an edited list of questions,” Brynjar said, making sure his bow tie was straight. “You still has a choice.”

“Thanks,” Finn said grimly. “I’m good.” He sat just offstage, staring straight ahead. Brynjar, when he got nervous, kneaded his weak hand with his strong one, or rubbed his upper lip, or traced the patterns in his walking stick; or, if he wasn't supposed to move, combed through his rootlets. Finn, though, was awfully still. It was unnerving sometimes. 

“Brother,” Brynjar said. He kissed two fingertips and touched them to Finn's forehead.

“Brother,” Finn said, sounding a little strangled.

Brynjar took his place behind the desk. Jessalyn motioned with her eyes at where Finn would ordinarily be sitting. Brynjar gave her the tiniest of nods. All set.

Jessalyn waited for the applause to die down, and said, beaming, “Our next guest was a political commentator for Alpha News for seven years, and now holds a teaching position in NUA's philosophy department. Her book _In Our Own Image: New Perspectives on Changelings_ is in stores tomorrow. Ladies and gentlemen and all, please welcome Dr. Calliope Inidael.”

A trim middle-aged lios alfr emerged from backstage. Jessalyn gave her a little hug. Brynjar bowed over her hand, and drew her over to the chairs where _News from Nobody_ conducted interviews.

“So, telling me about this book,” Brynjar said, after the necessary pleasantries had been exchanged. 

“I’m looking at the practice of making changelings, and basically calling for a worldwide ban on it, and the deactivation and destruction of all the ones that already exist.”

“I sees. And can you talk about why you recommend this thing?”

“I think the Hagefestning scandal is proof enough of what people can do with this technology. It’s very dangerous. You’re taking this intelligence you know nothing about, and housing it in a body, and just hoping that nothing will go wrong.”

“So... it soundeth like you focusing less on the idea that owning people is wrong...”

She laughed, and put up her hands. “Now, you want to be careful with that. That’s a mistake that a lot of people make, anthropomorphizing them. That’s been the basis for a lot of arguments against the practice, but it’s spurious and I wish people wouldn’t embarrass us with it.”

“Really,” Brynjar said. 

“Yes. It’s difficult for a lot of people to get their heads around, but what you’re seeing when you see a changeling walk and talk and answer questions is really just sophisticated programming.”

“Not intelligence?”

“Not the kind of intelligence we’re used to. No emotion. Just really good programming. That’s the difference between us and humans, you know; _we_ would never do this with intelligent beings.”

“Really,” said Brynjar. “I thinked humans were quite skilled at convincing themselves the people they enslave are somewise less than themselves.”

“It’s disingenuous to call changelings people,” Inidael protested. “You’ll note that among all the people going, Ooh, those poor things deserve the same rights as an elf, there’s not one changeling. They don’t have the mental capacity, for one thing.”

“There is a great fear of them,” Brynjar pointed out, “and the law protects them incompletefully. Might a factor not be that they find it safer to live undetectified?”

Inidael chuckled. “You can only hear that excuse so many times before it starts to wear very, very thin for the people who are committed to thinking seriously about this issue.”

“As luckiness would have it,” Brynjar said, “we has found a changeling willing to come forward.”

“Oh _have_ you?” Inidael said, folding her hands over one knee.

“Indeed we has. He are nervous, so please be kind. Ladies, gentlemen, and treasured moderates, please give a warm welcoming to the liberated changeling of Vegard Ylvisåker!”

Finn strode out onto the stage, blowing kisses. The first reaction that predominated was a collective gasp, and the stony silence. Then , applause started--at first a smattering, and then it built to something not thunderous, but at least respectable. There were a few dozen enterprising souls booing him too, but they were in the minority as Finn clasped Brynjar’s hand and then Dr. Inidael’s, and took a seat on the far side of her.

“Finn, thou hast been listening.”

“I have.”

“I don’t believe you,” Inidael said, looking a bit pinched.

Brynjar handed her a sheaf of papers. “The dálki reports.”

She glanced through them. She looked at Finn. Then she looked at Brynjar, who smiled sunnily. He wasn’t going to go out of his way to reveal himself, but if she wanted to read out his name--or even, for that matter, if the audience felt like putting two and two together for themselves, because they’d been given more than enough information--he was not averse.

“Finn, this are our fifth month on the air.” They’d talked about these questions, at length. “Why has you choosed to expose your changelingness now?”

“Because Dr. Inidael is right about one thing: it would help to have someone who is openly a changeling advocating for us. I’ve already got a public profile, the dálki are aware of my status, I’m liberated and Vegard has already served his time for it, my close friends and family already know, and it’s impossible for my in-laws to be more disappointed in me.” A ripple of laughter went through the crowd, and even Inidael snorted. “In short, I have very little to lose.”

“So you lied to everyone,” Inidael said. “People trusted you to tell them the truth, and you lied to them about something as basic as what you are.”

Brynjar saw that that one had struck home, but Finn only leaned back in his chair. “First and foremost, you don’t make it very safe to tell the whole truth. If being completely forthright about what I am means that I’m going to be treated as if I have no rights and no feelings, then of course I’m going to hesitate. Second, this is a comedy show, not news. People shouldn’t trust me to tell the truth; they should be trusting me to make them laugh, which means I have to think of something funny to say quick, or in about ten seconds I’m going to have to just drop my pants and hope for the best.”

Jessalyn had somehow contrived to turn her microphone on. “Title of Finn's sex tape,” she crowed, off camera. 

When the furor had died down, Brynjar said, “More to the point, Finn, what does you want for changelings? Does you want the laws repealed?”

“I can’t speak for all of us,” Finn said, “but I want it to be fully legal to make changelings, and I want us to have full person’s rights.”

“That would be anarchy!” Inidael protested. “That would be the Nedrekorgen Upwelling times a thousand!”

“Finn, canst thou tell us how you would propose to prevent such a thing?”

Finn shrugged. “People make people all the time without getting all sorts of elaborate permissions. If my rights as a person are recognized and enshrined in law, you can’t include compulsion in my programming. You can’t enslave me. You can’t force me to hurt people, or to do any of the things you wouldn’t do yourself.”

“That lets the creator off the hook,” Inidael retorted, “but what if the changeling goes and does it anyway?”

“Perhaps I am mistaked, but I believes there are existifying laws that address the hurting of people,” said Brynjar dryly. “We has thirty seconds left. Dr. Inidael, has you final thoughts?”

“I don’t know what I _can_ say; it’s plain that I’m not going to convince anyone here. But even if this one, _this_ one is all right, Mr. Weber, can you vouch for the rest of your kind?”

“Should I have to?” Finn rejoined. “We’re people, and we’re as different as other kinds of people, and the laws that apply to other kinds of people should apply to us too.”

As Dr. Inidael rose, stony-faced, she shook Brynjar’s hand. “Thank you for the talking,” he said. She grimaced. 

Finn offered a hand. She looked at it and glared at him. He was about to let it sink down again, but then she clasped it, briefly, in a perfunctory grip that had no warmth in it.

“That’s been our show for tonight!” Jessalyn said as Finn and Brynjar took their places behind the desk. “Stay tuned for _Fantastic Beasts and Whether They’re Smarter than a Fifth-Grader_. I’m Jess Aruviel...”

“I are Brynjar Kvam...”

“And I’m Finn Weber. Go well and good night!”

***

The August afternoon was warm but overcast, the air sticky and still. Vegard and Bård were in a shaggy corner of Vegard’s front yard, weeding by hand so as not to pluck out perennials he and Helene would really rather keep. They were working out ideas for art theft episode of the new show. They had not consciously thought at each other, or said a single word for hours, but when they got back to work on Monday they would both be on the same page.

Vegard thought the vibration was his imagination, but Bård met his eyes. “Tremor?” he said aloud.

It happened again. Bergen had the odd one, but it was strange to feel it in Oslo. And there it was again. Thunder, maybe? “The storm’s not supposed to come until tonight,” he said. Then, “Oh.”

“What?”

“The wards say someone’s coming.”

They turned. A great mountain of a woman was striding towards them, grey-skinned and large-nosed, wearing a shapeless dark green garment that covered her head and hung on her like a tent. A troll. In one hand, she held a beach umbrella. With her other she held the hand of a smaller troll, only about Vegard's height, who wore a long-sleeved pink gingham dress and a pink poke bonnet, and would not meet his eyes. 

The troll woman cleared her throat. “I crave your pardon, but am I addressing the master of this house?”

The brothers got to their feet. Vegard dusted off his hands. “That’s me,” he said. “I'd shake your hand, but...” He showed her his own dirty hands.

“I understand,” she said. “It is not proper, given your station.”

“Oi, I didn't mean _that_ ,” he said.

“Forgive me,” she said, inclining her head. “I bring you my daughter, Lynhender.”

“You what?” Bård shrilled. 

The smaller troll looked anxiously back at her mother, and then shuffled towards the men. She was a very young troll, and Vegard automatically reached for her, taking her free hand, which was hidden in a sleeve, and making soothing noises as he drew her to his side. 

“Why?” he said, keeping his voice soft and calm. 

“Because you and your compatriots are right, she is better as she is, she is a beautiful young troll, but I cannot...” The troll lowered her head, and let out a sob. “I cannot give her what she needs. I have hurt her already. I hear the others saying that they give up their children to chastise you, but Lynhender is not a punishment. Lynhender is my precious little girl I have wounded. I know this now, but knowing it does not make me a better mother. They say the others are being cared for in a safe place. I wish that for Lynhender, and I cannot give it to her on my own. You are kind and wise, and I commend her to your care.” She made a noise like a landslide then, and when the little girl rumbled back, Vegard realized that they were talking to each other. Then the woman turned, and strode back up the lane. She paused, once, to turn back and wave.

Lynhender lifted a hand, and opened and closed it in a little-kid wave. Her shoulders slumped, and she plunked herself down on the lawn and started wailing.

“I’m going after her,” Bård said. “This is ridiculous, this is--”

Vegard had put out a hand, but before he could touch Lynhender’s shoulder, he felt himself pushed violently back. A few steps away, Bård had sprawled on the ground with a strangled cry.

“All right,” Vegard said soothingly. For a little kid, she had an awful lot of magic, but then he supposed she was an awful lot of little kid, too. 

“I’m calling the cousins,” Bård announced, staggering to his feet but keeping his distance. 

Lynhender kept wailing.

“Finn,” Bård said very evenly into his phone, “someone has just dropped off a young troll in my brother’s front yard.” He listened for a moment. “No. She... I think she wanted me to know that she _wasn't_ angry.” He relayed the details of the big troll’s visit. Lynhender folded herself up on the ground, chin on knees. Vegard scrubbed tears from his own eyes and reached for her again. This time she let him, and he ran a careful hand over the bonnet. 

Bård put his phone back in his pocket. “They’re coming,” he reported.

Lynhender had quieted down during the conversation, and was hugging herself. Tears ran down her grey cheeks. 

“Can I give you a hug?” Vegard asked the girl. She nodded warily, and he dropped to his knees and hugged her, cooing soothing nonsense at her. Bård angled his body towards them, but he and Vegard silently agreed that it was probably better for him to stay where he was.

Ten minutes later, the strains of a lullaby floated up the lane. Finn strolled up singing “Gjendines Bånsull,” hands held out in front of him. 

“Thanks for coming so quickly,” Bård said, getting slowly to his feet.

Finn knelt down in front of Lynhender, and was knocked flat. “It's okay,” he said from where he lay in the grass, “I'm okay.”

Bård helped him up. “Lynhender, this is our cousin Finn. He's here to help.”

This time she knocked all three of them down. “No help want Mama!” But she said it miserably, as if resigned. 

“My brother is getting your mama,” Finn said as they struggled up. “We’re all going to go and have a talk, and find out what she needs to help you stay with her.”

“Finn,” Vegard said, “you sound like you’ve done this before, and I have so many questions.”

Finn kept his voice a gentle singsong for the benefit of Lynhender, who regarded him warily. “When we covered Una's story last month, the angle we went with--the place where we thought there was still the most work to do--was how she started out using the grimmurgaldur as a treatment for malignant precocity. First to shield the parents, and then to crystallize the kids. I mean, _you_ felt what that was like. Would you do that to a child?”

“It would be hell,” Vegard said. And then he thought about a child’s sense of time, about the way five minutes of sitting still might as well be an hour. “It would be _hell_.”

“Precisely.”

“And when Una needed goons to do her dirty work,” Bård said, his voice tightening, “she’d look up which of the parents had a criminal record, and they’d do anything for her because they were beholden to her.”

Finn gave him a grim nod. “Melly thought so, and Una herself confirmed it for us. Didn’t think there was a thing wrong with it. So we do the first half making jokes about the whole Hagefestning event itself, and the second about hey, you don’t do this to kids, and here are these adults who were born with malignant precocity who tell you why and what do to instead. Deluge of mail--typical. Some of it going thank you thank you thank you, some of it going I never realized this but I’ll try the suggestions the survivors made, and some of it going screw you TV men, you don’t know what it’s like to raise a child with MP and how dare you judge me? But the big thing, the thing that got the _real_ news involved, and probably one of the things that made Omega's patience wear thin is that people started dropping their kids off at the studio. Like, ‘You want to take away the only thing that worked? _You_ raise ‘em.’”

“But what worked was torture,” Vegard protested. He’d been patting Lynhender’s arm, but suddenly he couldn’t lift his hand. She must not want to be touched by someone who was raising his voice, and he supposed he understood that. 

“It was,” Finn agreed. Then his gaze turned to Vegard, who bristled a little, because that was the look people gave him when they were about to ask how he was in a tone that clearly implied he was as fragile as spun glass. But what Finn said was, “How’s Calle doing?”

“Very good,” Vegard said. “We made him take a week off and now it’s like he’s back to his old self. But he…” Vegard frowned, trying to put it into words. “He _watches_.” Something occurred to him. “Is it okay to give him your number?”

“Of course! Are you sure he’d want to talk to me, though?”

“Finn!” Bård cried in exasperation.

“Well I’m not exactly everyone’s favourite facsimile of a person right now.”

“I think he would love it,” Vegard said, starting to pat Lynhender's arm again. “How about… how is… everyone else?”

Finn looked relieved. “Zweinar comes and helps out sometimes, but I think he’s avoiding me. I think he’s getting himself together, and that’s all right. Ida went to Bergen. She said she’d been hearing about it all her life, and now she wants to see it, and the last thing I got from her was a letter with a sketch of Bryggen, so I think she likes it. Henning’s staying in Asgard for now. He’s been helping with the kids. He’s really good with them. And he’s studying towards some kind of certificate. The gods are paying for it.” 

“Are he and Brynjar…” Vegard waggled his hand expressively. 

“Gods, no!” Finn said. “Sorry… sorry. That was... sorry. And nobody’s actually a conifer anymore, not that it _should_ matter anyway, and never mind me, I don't know where that came from. I'll work on it. Sorry. I just. You know. Still working on it.”

“How are _you_?” Bård asked. “After your bombshell? How did people take it?”

Finn closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. The air seemed to go out of him. “Bloody hell.”

“What?” said Vegard.

“I was hoping you would have seen it elsewhere.”

“What?” said Bård, a little more insistently.

“For one thing, we’re cancelled.”

“ _What?_ ” the brothers chorused. Lynhender's shoulders tensed, and she eyed them warily.

“Well. On indefinite hiatus. We got the call the day after. Fifteen sponsors wanted to pull their ads because of me. Because I lied, they say. Not because I’m a changeling, oh no. The network just needs to make some decisions, is what they said. The hate mail is apparently off the scale; Grethe in Elven Resources let it slip that part of my, uh, furlough is because even the people who support me don’t think it would be a good idea to let me see it. Someone pulled Melantha aside at Gisela’s office and let her know that what she was doing wasn’t natural. Reporters have been calling. I even got a call about my standing. I had just gotten my replacement card, but they were going to revoke it because they said I’d lied on the initial application when I said I was a human. I said, I didn’t _lie_ about it. By the time it went through I was completely human. It would be like applying at seventeen, because I knew I was going to be eighteen soon, and that’s how things are usually done for everyone else so I don’t know why it would be different for me.”

“What did they say?” Bård asked.

There was a touch of hysteria in his laugh. “Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Two days later, I called back for an update, and they said everything was fine, someone had made a mistake and it was cleared up now.”

“Lucky,” Vegard observed.

“ _Not_ luck,” Finn said so sharply that it was almost a bark. Lynhender cringed, and Vegard flinched involuntarily. Finn put up his hands in a placating gesture, a look of horror on his face. “Gods! Vegard, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to do that.”

“It’s okay, it’s okay. No big deal. Not luck?”

“No,” Finn said, making an audible effort to sound calmer. “Ariadne Aruviel.”

“Your mother-in-law?” Bård demanded.

“The one and mercifully only. She pulled some strings. That's not all. The _Alpha Chronicle_ approached her for an interview, and quoted her as saying that no matter what I am, I’m a nice boy, and Melantha has done a lot worse than me in her day.”

“I think that’s good news,” Vegard said.

“Possibly,” agreed Finn. “Melly just, when I heard and I was standing there she just patted my hand and said, ‘Welcome to Planet Ariadne.’ I just, I, I am trying really hard to be okay with all… this. Not beat myself up. Hold it together.” His voice caught. “But I got cocky and I screwed up.”

Vegard rubbed Finn’s arm sympathetically. “Wait a second,” Bård said in tones that got him thrown to the ground again. Vegard’s eyes flew open, and Bård patted the air in a calming gesture before he said, again, “ _Wait a second._ How did _you_ screw up?”

“I, I _told_ , because I thought they couldn’t hurt me. And they could. And now everyone around me is hurt too.”

“Finn... Finn...” Bård put firm hands on Finn’s shoulders. “We were in the audience. We saw. You _knew_ this would happen. Didn’t you? And you decided that of all the changelings you knew out there, you were the safest.”

Finn sighed heavily. “You’re right. And I should just take my medicine.”

Vegard plucked at Finn’s arm uncertainly, and then leaned over from Lynhender to give Finn a brief, fierce hug. “Last winter was my choice too, but you never would have said that to me.”

Finn rested his forehead on Vegard's shoulder. “You’re right. Of course you're right.” He took a few deep breaths, and offered up a watery smile. “Any advice?”

Vegard thought a minute. “Things are never going to go back to the way they were,” he said finally. “You’ll just make yourself sad if you try. But things will be good again. Just, a different kind of good.” He appeared to think it over. “Also, it’s not your fault.”

“I would have led with that,” Bård said. “But five months is already a really long season anyway. You've got some time with your family, okay? Relax a little. Rest up. Plan the next show, or the next adventure, or whatever.”

“Or your wedding,” Vegard advised. “But I think if you want to take a little bit of time to scream at the world, that's okay too. Probably good practice for planning a wedding.”

Finn's smile broadened at that. “You're right. Of course you're right. I-I think I might have to, yeah, take a few days and scream. But the other changelings are watching. And, and everyone else, and probably what I do next matters, doesn't it?” 

“Right!” said Bård.

“Right,” Finn said. “Right.” And he promptly burst into tears.

Lynhender squirmed out of Vegard’s arms and tottered over to Finn. She put one arm around him and petted his curls, and used the corner of her dress to wipe his eyes. He hugged back, slowly and carefully. 

“Is she going to be okay?” Bård asked eventually, his own eyes shining.

“Lynhender is the sixth,” Finn said, after an impatient swipe at his eyes and a couple of robust sniffles. “They're in the gods' hands. Literally; the Höðr Odinsson already ran a couple of day programs, so we just had to build on what they already had. The kids spend a couple of days in Asgard, and then we contact the families. If they’ll take them back, we give them the support they need. If not, we find them better families. But from what you told me... if Brynjar can find her mother, we’ll all go over to the Höðr Odinsson together and I think we'll be able to work something out.”

While Finn was talking, Vegard carefully stretched out a hand again, and found Lynhender’s hand. She let him take it. “I think if you abandon your children because you can't abuse them anymore, you probably don't deserve children.”

“I don't disagree, generally,” Finn said, “but considering how lousy the system has been, it makes the most sense to see how they do with better supports and better information." He shifted uncomfortably. “When the kids are with us, they cry for their parents. I mean look. Lynhender’s a toddler. Most of them are. They’ve been through enough. If the way to help them is to help their awful parents be less awful, then I’m for it.”

“As long as someone keeps an eye on them,” Bård said.

The ground stirred subtly, rhythmically, again, and Vegard felt the wards trip. Sleipnir appeared in the lane, nudging the troll woman in front of her. Brynjar followed, walking stick tap-tapping on the pavement.

Lynhender sprang to her feet, and ran to her mother. The troll caught her and lifted her, and rumbled to her in a way that suggested apology. After a long hug, Lynhender pulled back, and stretched out a hand to Sleipnir, her eyes large and wondering. The horse whickered, hunkering down at the edge of Vegard’s lawn. 

“Wouldst thou like to ride her?” Brynjar asked gently. 

Lynhender looked to her mother, who nodded. With twin boosts from Brynjar and the older troll, the girl climbed onto Sleipnir’s back. She made sure that she was holding onto her mother's hand at all times, and this time the troll was not going to let go.

Finn and Brynjar glanced at each other. Vegard saw the negotiation happening, and intuited that they would be walking. Sleipnir couldn't carry two trolls, neither cousin would risk upsetting Lynhender by getting up there with her, and they would neither separate mother and child again nor leave them, even with Sleipnir there. “Do you want help?” Bård asked.

“I think we’re all right,” Finn said brightly.

“All of the thank yous, though,” Brynjar added.

“Okay,” Vegard said, “but do you want company?”

Finn and Brynjar looked at each other. “Of courses,” Brynjar said.

“Always,” Finn added, moving to make room for them at Sleipnir’s side. And they walked back down the lane together, all seven of them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Suggested musical pairing: Kate Bush's "The Big Sky" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sV7w5TaYjRA

**Author's Note:**

> Of the four big things I've written this seems the weakest. Still trying to decide if it's because it's a bit of fluff after a lot of angst, or because I rushed bits and never did get them properly unkinked, or because I kept everyone in Oslo, or something else entirely. But this is what I've got, and they can't all be winners.
> 
> Thanks to natalunasans, devi2356, ringading, Lisselone, Humbae, hoosonja, mrs. mango, and DoktorGirlfriend, for help and encouragement and basically just being wonderful people who kept me writing this thing. 
> 
> To eldkrind for the very best cover art.
> 
> To the Script family of blogs for assistance. 
> 
> To the Universitetet i Oslo folks who run the online Norwegian course.
> 
> To my parents, for letting me hide out in their basement for unreasonable amounts of time.
> 
> To Auntie Emmeline and to Anders for being who they were, and leaving the world a better place than they found it.
> 
> To Jen, Sarah, Cathérine, Bridget, and Hilda for letting me crash.
> 
> To Allan, who would be horrified if he knew this was what I was doing with my time, for encouragement and forbearance and so much help.
> 
> To Will, for being Will. 
> 
> To everyone who has read and/or commented. And the thousand or so people I'm probably forgetting.
> 
> To those adorable nerds.


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